♪ >> all right. i thought we had another thing here, but i think we are done. so thank you much, and let's get working. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> we'll have more live coverage of the progressive movement event at 1:45, and you can stream that live at c-span.org. and more live coverage of some of the events going on here today here on c-span2. at 1:00 eastern florida congressman alan west will talk about ways to help small businesses in the african-american community. we'll also hear from the former ceo of black entertainment television and others. and both chambers of congress are in today. the house returns from break at 2 eastern working on nine bills under suspension of the rules. and later this week taking up oil and gas production. that'll be on our companion

network, c-span. here on c-span2, the senate gavels in at 3 eastern. at 5:00 they're going to turn to debate on a judicial nomination for south carolina, and later this week we'll see senators probably take up the farm and nutrition programs. live coverage of the senate here on c-span2. >> we are in a incredibly important era for the future growth of the software industry and the future of american companies be successful for things which like sopa/pipa matter, but they're only one element where what the u.s. does will need to take account of what's happening internationally, and we have to break down barriers where we see them exist, but also find a balance that allows innovation. >> tonight, business software alliance president and ceo robert holleyman on the industry's next steps, fighting online piracy and improving cybersecurity. "the communicators" at 8 eastern on c-span2.

next month award-winning author and historian david pietrusza is our guest on in depth. his passion for baseball has resulted in a dozen books including 1960, lbj v. jfkv nixon. join us live with your calls, e-mails and tweets for david by truce saw sunday, july 1st, at noon eastern on booktv's "in depth" on c-span2. >> the net roots organization recently held its annual conference in providence, rhode island. one of it panels focused on the u.s. economic recovery and the middle class. [applause] speakers included the winner of the nobel prize in economics, paul krugman, and afl-cio president richard trumka who called on people to build a 99% movement to force be public debate and change in the

political arena. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> good morning. [laughter] i'm not going to take it personally that they put us here at 9 a.m. after a rousing friday night of partying here in providence. but i'm so glad to sort of see all of you here and the know that we are being streamed live on c-span and that the words and the heart and the commitment of these incredible, incredible speakers that we have are going to reach a very large audience this morning. so thank you all for being here. thanks to net roots nation for putting together this incredible panel. so we're going to get right to it. this morning we are going to be joined by a fantastic group of people who have a shared and sometimes divergent but always exciting set of visions for where we should be leading our economy to move us out of the mess that we're in and to a brighter shared future. we have richard trumka, the

president of the afl-cio. [applause] erica payne, the founder of the agenda project. [applause] ai-jen poo poo, the founder and executive director of the national domestic workers alliance. [applause] and last but not least, the only person on the stage to win a nobel as of yet -- [laughter] economist and new york times columnist paul krugman. [cheers and applause] so here's how we're going to do in this morning. we're going to hear from paul krugman who's got an incredible book out called "end this

recession now," and we're going to go into a quick moderated discussion among these fantastic people, and then we're going to have 20 minutes at the end for audience questions. so without further ado, i'd like to invite paul krugman to the stage. [applause] >> so good morning, um, and thanks to net roots for letting me talk here. um, just a few remarks because i think we're going to mostly do discussion. i want to say a couple of things. first, i do have this, i do have the d-word in the title of my book. why depression? why not something, you know, milder and more reasonable? part of the answer is i think that we really need to understand that there's a difference between the ups and downs of, you know, the business

cycle. a recession, roughly speaking, a recession is when things are heading down. a depression -- we don't have a formal definition, but i'd say a depression is when things are down, when things are terrible for an expended period of time. that was the great depression. there were periods of official recovery during the great depression, it wasn't all recessions, but it was, you know, obviously horrible. and so it is again today. it's not as, it's not as bad as the great depression. there's a winning slogan, you know? not a as bad as the great depression. but it's incredibly awful. and it's, you probably -- if you don't know multiple people who are suffering, then you must be living in a very rarefied environment. you must be, well, maybe a member of the romney clan or something. but you're -- there are about four million americans, american

workers who have been out of work for more than a year which is something that has not happened since the '30s. there is incredible suffering among young people trying to get their lives started. every time i see some politician or pundit saying, oh, you know, we need to think about the debt and about the burden on the children, what about the young people right now who can't get their lives properly started? [applause] um, there's, um, so it is very terrible, and it's a problem, of course, across the entire advanced world. but in many ways it's, there are -- it's terrible, but it's certainly incredibly bad here. and the thing about it is that it's not, none of this has to be happening. this is not one of those things where, you know, we didn't have a plague of locusts, we were not hit by a tsunami, we -- there

wasn't some act of god that created this terrible situation. um, it was acts of man. and perhaps even more important right now, it's easily solvable. we've seen this movie before. we know how this works. it's an interesting thing here because you tend to think that, well, people who are demanding that we solve this thing quickly must be, you know, crazy idealists who are defying the wisdom of economic knowledge. but it's actually the other way around. it's actually the people in charge who are refusing to end this thing quickly, who are ignoring the lessons of history and rejecting, rejecting economic knowledge that we know from history. this is, you know, there are some lessons that we learned, i thought, i thought we had learned really well which are things like do not slash

government spending and lay off hundreds of thousands of workers in the middle of a depression. i thought we knew that. [applause] and yet, um, and yet we've been ignoring all of that hard-earned knowledge. i actually have seen an advance of the review that will come out in "the new york times." you should know that "the new york times" book review is run by sam tanenhaus who's very much a neo-con and makes a point whenever a progressive comes out with a book to find someone who will attack it. and it's not really an attack, but the reviewer is shocked at the lack of respect i show for highly-respected people, i think he uses that phrase, like erskine bowles and alan simpson. and, um, and there's a phrase i picked up -- i don't know, is duncan black here? i don't know. but anyway, there's a phrase i picked up from duncan black, aka

atrios that i love and use, you know, applies to everything which is very serious people. and what we've had is we've been living under the tyranny of the very serious people who are partly defending class interests and partly just plain getting it wrong. just going with their prejudices instead of what we know. what we know from textbook economics, what we know from 80 years of his to have cag experience -- historical experience and are messing this up. and we could solve this. solving this depression is not fundamentally an economic problem, it's a political problem. it's a problem of getting the, if you like, getting those very serious people out of the way and doing what we actually already know which is -- [applause] why gatherings like this are important. thank you all. thanks. [applause]

>> so i just have to say one quick housekeeping thing. the clock is not on, and i will let these people talk all morning. so if you want me to do my job here, you just turn the clock on. so, rich, paul really laid out a problem here which, i think, is a fundamental one at the root of the crisis that we're facing, is that there's a problem of unemployment, of underemployment, of a lack of economic strength and security among the vast majority of working people in this country. and if you look at that problem, there are a set of solutions that have to do with more government spending, that have to do with stronger labor unions, higher wages, that have to allow for a certain amount of inflation. in other words, the progressive economic agenda. if you reshape the problem that the problem we are in today and the problem we are in across the globe is that the problem is high government deficits,

there's an entirely different problem at the state level and at the federal level. and if you look at the problem that way, the solution is lower wages, cutting public benefits, destroying public unions. so we are in a moment where it feels like we have to insure that the real crisis is the crisis of the day. how is the american labor union movement which is implicated in both of those big economic fights responding not only for its workers and its members, but for the entire broad working and middle class? >> well -- whoa. [laughter] that's pretty loud. >> go ahead. >> first of all, i'd just point out that every country in europe that embraced austerity and the deficit solution, all 11 of them had an election, and all 11 of

them lost. it doesn't matter whether they came from the left, the right or the center. [applause] they all lost. and there'll be a few more that'll embrace austerity and will lose as well. i guess i'd start off by saying that nothing will change unless we make it change. and the second thing i would say is none of us are big enough to do it alone. so we really do have to build a movement of the 99% that is capable of coming together, forcing a public debate on our territory, hopefully forcing the president to have that same debate with us so that he leads that debate, and we go forward. now, at the afl-cio let me tell you some of the things that we're doing to try to make that happen. we're reaching out to community partners. and in the past we weren't really the best partners in the world. the labor movement's idea of a

partnership was when we had a problem, everybody comes and helps us solve it, and after the problem's solved, you get to go your merry way. but we're changing that. and we also used to say here's our solution, come and join our solution. and we're trying to change that. so what we've done, we've convened a group of all the progressive groups out there, and we're talking about an economic agenda that will work for all of us. we will release this in mid july. it was developed by all the progressive groups, all of us working together, so it will be our agenda. we'll use it as a test for candidates who want our support. if they support that economic agenda, then we will support them. if they don't, we'll wish them well and send them packing empty handed because they really respect friends to us at all. aren't friends to us at all. the other thing that we've done is we've changed the way that

we're doing politics right now. it used to be that we thought about elections in a one cycle. now we look at elections in three cycles. 2012, '14 and '16 so we can strategize over a long period of time. the other thing that we've done is change our system from a part-time system to a full-of time system. we used to start nine months before the election, build up our structure, have an election day and then while we were celebrating election night, the people that tried to unelect the candidates that we supported are plotting and scheming somewhere else to take them, how to co-opt them. and before long they had amnesia, and they were with them and not with us. so now we'll go to a full-time program that'll be in play. so the day after the election just like in wisconsin we'll be looking to build and bring more partners in to expand, to mobilize, to educate, and we'll

be able to move from lek tore y'all -- electoral politics to legislative advocacy and to accountability pretty seamlessly and continue to grow in the process. building that movement and staying together on the economic message is the best thing that we can do. and, quite frankly, when our friends whether they're in the white house, the senate or the house or the statehouse or anywhere else, when they get wayward somewhere, it'll be up to us to come back on the ground, hold them accountable and make them come back to the main things that they're already doing, and that's creating jobs, creating more jobs and creating more jobs yet and creating an economy that really works for everybody and not just the 1% who have done so well over the past couple of decades. [applause]

so ai-jen, rich talked about creating a movement, and one of, i think, the most intractable, difficult problems for the progressive economic movement is that there is a core inequality from political inequality to economic inequality and then wraps back around again. so that the tens of millions of americans who are most economically dispossessed are often the ones who are the least likely to vote, the least likely to contribute, the least likely to do other forms of political accountability and civic engagement. so that is one of the core problems we face in trying to create a movement not just for the 99%, but of the 99%. and you are doing an incredible thing. i just have to say we just recently honored ai-jen with the transforming america award because we are in awe of what she's doing, so i'm not exactly an impartial moderator on this. but you are doing an incredible

thing to bring some of the most dispossessed and excluded workers in our economy into organizing, into political activism and into transforming their own workplace and also transforming our economy as large. can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing, the challenges you face and the sort of potential for the broader economy? >> absolutely. good morning. can you hear me? >> no. >> can you hear me? >> yes. >> all right, good morning. >> morning. >> are you awake? [laughter] good. well, thanks so much for the question, heather. you know, when we first started organizing domestic workers, it was seen as a marginal shadow work force excluded and, um, what we've seen over the course of the last 15 years is that the conditions that define reality for domestic workers increasingly define realities for every american worker. the instability, the lack of

benefits and job security, the contingent and temporary nature of it. and so we've come to realize that we have so much in common as workers in this country, all of us from every corner of the economy. and the good news is that from those places of exclusion and marginality there have been incredible efforts to organize and transform working conditions, and there have been really big victories, historic victories like the passage of the new york domestic workers' bill of rights. [cheers and applause] establishing protections for over 200,000 mostly immigrant women workers doing the work that makes all other work possible. and i think that not only is it a place to look to for victories, but to actual solutions that cannot only address reality for those

particular groups of workers, but for the whole work force and the economy as a whole. be if you look -- if you look at the care industry right now, care jobs are some of the fastest growing jobs in the country, work forces in the country. looking into care, you can almost see it's almost the kind of window onto the health and well being of the economy as a whole that manufacturing was in the '20s and '30s. so if we can really lean into some of these sectors, we can figure out how to set a tone for the kind of economy we want to be building in the 21st century. and i will just say care is continuing to grow as our country changes and, frankly, as we age as a nation. a lot of people talk about the changing racial demographics of the country, but we are also aging at a rate of a person every eight seconds turning 65 in this country. and so there's going to be a growing need for care, and i think that that's a huge

opportunity to lean in and reshape that piece of the economy in such a way that really recognizes everyone's human dignity. we can create jobs to the tune of two million new jobs in home care to make sure that everyone who needs care can get it, and we can make sure that every one of those jobs is a quality, dignified job and that we can actually all collectively afford the care that we need to live with dignity. and that's the kind of agenda that not only will help us unite the country across race, class and generation, but also help us get at some of the heart of some of our biggest economic challenges of the day. [applause] >> so i can't resist this but, erica, ai-jen is talking about caring for our you elderly, carg for senior citizens in this country, but you threw granny off a cliff. >> yes, we did.

>> tell us a little bit about what it is you're doing to wake up washington, to interrupt the media cycle that allows all of what we're talking about to be an excluded alternative. >> yeah. so for those of you who have not seen the granny off the cliff ad it's, basically, you hear "america the beautiful" playing in the background, a very peaceful scene with a paul ryan lookalike wheeling a grandmother through a park, and then you lesh that the republicans -- learn that the republicans want to privatize medicare. and then the music turns very sinister, and she starts struggling, and as the cliff approaches, you know, they're asking they're not really going to do it, are they? and we are, in fact, going to do it. and he hurls her off the cliff, and you see her body fall down. it was a fantastic shoot. [laughter] it was great. the one where the grandmother was eating the cat food didn't work as well, so we didn't release that one. [laughter] but, yeah, we spent $3500 making

that ad, and we spent no money on a paid ad buy. but it got 20 million media impressions. and we released it right as paul ryan's budget last year was coming out. and what you saw happen in the media cycle was that the phrase "off the cliff" went everywhere during this period of time. so we have mitch mcconnell protesting that no one's trying to throw granny off the cliff. [laughter] you know, and when you get them in that position, you know, then that's a win, okay? that's a win. when the senate minority leader is protesting that he is not, in fact, trying to throw granny off the cliff, that's a win. so when we're talking about creating messages that break through, the way that we view our job is to look at, to look at the public policy process as this endless cycle of package

development, marketing and distribution. and the product may be a specific piece of legislation, it may be a value system. ideally, those two things are connected, right? but the distribution is where all the cost is. so i spent a lot of time working on financial reform, and during the period of time that i worked on financial reform, the left spent two or three million dollars advocating for effective financial reform in the wake of the worst financial crisis since the depression. during that same period of time, the banks spent $600 million on lobbyists. and so there's an order of magnitude difference in financial resources that we have to use as the given to our problem solving, okay? so we have to understand that they have $300 to our $1 or $200 to our $1. so what we've got to do is find places where we can get $200 of impact for a dollar that we spend. so $3500, you know, for 20 million media impressions,

you're getting in that range. our patriotic millionaires campaign which is 200 amazing folks who are running around the country for the last year and a half asking to have their taxes raised, that campaign has been about $80,000, and to date it's gotten about 80 million media impressions. the way that we're able to affect that is because we don't worry who gets the credit for putting the message out. okay? if a liberal advocacy group like the agenda project called for higher taxes on millionaires, what a yawner, right? who cares? okay, that's not news. you get 200 patriotic millionaires, that starts getting interesting. so we lead with those other brands. so what i would encourage us to do, i think, you know, liberals love a coalition. i actually don't think they're particularly effective. have your coalition and your planning session. don't have your coalition and

your outside forces. why all get in a group together and make the white house take one meeting when if you all do separate things, think of little helicopters landing seemingly unconnected. do the helicopter strategy, you know? and then the white house has to take ten meetings because ten different people, ten different groups are working on a message. and when you say something and just make sure that you say something that's worth saying, you know? i think a lot of times we encourage people to look carefully at this problem, you know, we encourage them to be accountable to voters, you know? huh-uh. when we did a letter about financial reform, we got 40 market experts to sign a letter saying you can't done financial reform, and until you do the following ten things, you wouldn't have prevented the last crisis, and you won't prevent the next one. so use your bold language, use

graphic images when you need to. understand that sometimes people need to say things in order to open up the oxygen for other people to say things. so when we threw granny off a cliff, i headed to the beach with all my girlfriends and let the rest of our community of liberals to go on tv to talk about it purposefully. and what i said to them was, denounce us. say the ad is tacky, tasteless, blah, blah, blah. you know? i don't want care. i just got you eight minutes to say why paul ryan's plan is horrible. spend 30 seconds of it denouncing me, then spend seven-and-a-half minutes telling people what this plan is going to do -- [applause] >> so, paul, i think we're in a really difficult place right now because even our president is talking about the need for the federal government to tighten

its belt the way that households are tightening their belts. what is wrong with that metaphor? [laughter] >> oh, wow. >> and what should we replace it with? >> yeah. um, the way i like to -- i should try -- by the way, that was a source of, you know -- [inaudible] because when john boehner first used the tighten our belt metaphor, six months later the president started using it, and it made us all pretty unhappy. but, look, i think the right decision, we are not an individual family. we are a society. and what that means, if you are just, you know, some person who's overspent, then, sure, you can cut back on your spending and try and work off your debt. but we are a society where who are you selling your, selling stuff to?

>> you're selling stuff to each other. my spending is your income, your spending is my income. if all of us decide at the same time we're going to tighten our belts and spend less, guess what? we all end up poorer because all of our spending falls at the same time. and by the way, this is the kind of stuff that we're supposed to know. this is stuff that we've known since the 1930s, right? everybody to slash spending at the same time, they think it's too much debt is self-defeating. and so that's why the metaphor is wrong. ..

they are not going to invest, they don't see a market. wouldn't it be great if that was the position to take society in terms into act and said what do we need to make the economy work instead of operating based upon fear and, you know, it's good enough and when people said, well, you know, government should be run like a business. there was a business that court

borrow at, i guess, at the monthly 7% long-term interest rates. inflation protected bonds have a negative interest rate. if you have to borrow literally for free and have lots of things that is -- it should be doing it would be borrowing that money and spending. that's what we need to do. and just -- sorry. this deficit obsession which we talk about is the most amazing thing, because it was -- i was shocked it happened. and we need to fight. in the long run we have to pay our bills -- what we need right now is jobs. i thought that was great. the biggerrest -- the biggest the way get silence in my line

of work is being accused of being shrill. we have -- but we have to get peoples' attention and if some people end up not liking you, that's okay because that's -- [applause] >> get a lot of hate mail. it's okay if people hate you. i would love to pick up on president obama -- paul said about tighting the belt. >> if you are not feeling the question burning in your mind and you won't hand it we won't be able to answer it. >> it's okay from a messaging point of view to concede the point that, you know, we are always want to be aware of our spending priorities. but if a tree just fell on of our house. if we are going to be forced into the metaphor of the regular

family has to tighten its belt. i'm an individual who decided to go to business school to invest $100 grand that took me forever to figure out it might have been worth it. to spend on something. investing in america. tower years ago we had the worst financial dpription. should we think about the spending? absolutely. the first thing you have to do is get the tree off your horse. the work that, you know, within the depression now get the tree off the house and deal with maybe we need to buy the less expensive peanut butter even though jiffy is the best brand. >> rich, about the question of the superior brand of peanut butter. so one would say, and we often do in the economic world, talk about the period of shared prosperity, the golden era

between the end of world war ii and just about when ronald reggen took office, we had the period of time when income growth in dan team there was a smaller gap a ceo pay, the trade rules were benefited and conscious of the livelihoods of the producers of the goods that were being transported. all of that has changed. in a way that has created fundamental economic insecurities for most persons. we now have two parents working and able to create a little less security than one parent was able to create on his own a generation ago. we have people going into the work force without the kind of security they have with contingent work and contract work and temporary work.

i actually like to challenge a little bit this idea that what we need to do is, you know, maybe spend a little bit now in the short term spending then we should actually spend less than we even have been now because of our long-term deficit. it seems to me, like we are actually going to have to do a lot work to put the american people on sound footing. we have make college debt free again. we have to make universal child case because both parents are working. [applause] it seems to me that's going to take a fair amount of money. i'm hearing from the american labor movement not let's do the short emergency thing but rework the empire package. what's been the response from our allies? that's what i want to know. >> before i i answer that, i would like to comment on the previous question.

you said there was a danger in the upcoming perhaps lame duck session or the beginning of next year about the -- and if you notice more and more and more democrats have been trying to embrace -- [inaudible] i will point out that it was never voted upon by the committee itself. [applause] sesked second of all, they had erroneous things in it. tax rates going up 28 percent. accept medicare, medicaid, social security and so one thing that we need to do collectively is give our friends a little bit of -- [inaudible] and declare as we have that we will fight any step in social security, medicare, and medicaid regardless of who proposals. we will fight it against it so that they -- [inaudible]

[applause] that and we get to pay for the bargain they had we want to finish. now, getting back to your other question from 1946, 1973 productivity in the country doubled and so did wages. they were tied together. the interesting thirng about that the people in the bottom their wages were raising faster than the people at the top president wage gap and inequality actually collapsed during that period of time we represented about 35 to 40% of the work force. we were driving wages. we were driving wages for folks and driving wages for nonunion folks. they got raises because we negotiated raise and better benefits and time off and weekends and all the things that you get. [applause] in '73, things started to

change. first it was the appointment of paul as defense secretary. he said although he has two jobs, his job is to fight inflation and create new employment. he said at that time i will no longer concern myself with full employment. i will only concern myself with fighting inflation. and that's been the position under ever president democrat or republican alike, until the very day. we're now bound to 12% of the work force. we don't drive wages. do we think that -- [inaudible] collective bargaining is the corner stone for a balanced economy so that everybody has a chance to get a little bit more -- [inaudible] because it is not that the nation doesn't have money. we do have money. we're the richest nation we've ever been. corporations have two years of

record profit over $2 trillion sitting in the banks. banks have $1.6 trillion sitting in the bank they're not lending. and they want to shrink their way out of as paul said and i all said, if we create jobs, you grow your way out of that. so revenue increases and you don't have to worry about cutting things. you have to worry about giving the future and investing in the future whether it's in education for our children that need an education. that helps whether it's converted bad jobs into good jobs. if you remember, i came out of the coal industry. the coal mining jobs were bad in town before -- awe toy workers were bad jobs. steel workers were bad jobs. we made them good jobs with collective bargaining. so it's up to us -- it's up to

us to come together and a economic agenda and keep them on it. don't let them digress into the deaf deficit nonsense is to say the only way we can go forward is cutting benefits and eating the seed corn. forcing people to invest in -- forcing them to invest in all kinds of job green jobs that will save energy. give us a better future. those are what tip us forward. that's the way we grow and create a -- [inaudible] give every kid a chance. right now, we have a couple of kids out of there that go to bed hungry every night. in this country, richest nation on the earth. that's unacceptable. we still have -- elderly people who don't have medicine they

can't find health care. that is unacceptable. we can change. all of us can. [applause] >> i'm going to start taking some of the first questions from the offered yens. and the first one, actually, is nicely with a point that rich made about the decisions by the federal reserve to basically let go one of the twin imperatives. i think this is a really point -- it's important for the -- to be able to understand and speak fluently. i'm going to ask the great economic explainer in chief over here. to tell us, a., why it is that the fed is so scared of inflation. and whose interested are served when we don't have high inflation? >> okay. >> and what can the fed do to bring down unemployment? >> wow.

this is a -- i have to say, it is one of the cases where i probably suffer a little bit from what i usually -- what is the pundit disease of being too close to the people that you should be bashing because ben bernanke was before -- he was actually chairman of the deference before being promoted to the current position. and what's going on there? i think -- it's not in there that indicates it's not the kind of rawness you're seeing. it's not like the brothers are holding secret meetings. it's more appreciatives who you hang out with. it is sort of the nature of the -- unless you fight it really hard which not doing. you're going to spend a lot more

time hanging out with wall street with the creditors, if you like. that you will with workers, you know, unemployed workers do not attend meetings of the federal reserve, and so there is the natural to be debt free that seen as hurting bondholder. anything as seen as hurting creditors. i think that's part of it. coupled with this is a pretty strong, -- the essential bank what to do learn you're supposed to be tough supposed to take away the punch bowl just as the party is getting going. and that unfortunately translate into a mind set you take away the punch bowl even though there was no party to begin with.

so -- you know, our depression now is not as bad as the great depression. the federal reserve not as bad as the european natational bank. [inaudible] the thing that you're doing your job right. all of that is going on and right now it's becoming something very strange going on because literally they're mought not making sense. they are actually say it's not just -- i know the people, it's not just -- it's the deputy and who i like a lot and so there's more things we could do but we're not ready to do them, but the economy is in terrible shape. we're not going hit our inflation. it's going to be below the inflation target. and unemployment is way above

where it should be. we're not going to do anything. something is going on, i think which is a mixture of clashed interests in a subtle way that absorbed by the board. i want to putter that in my article about ben barr nan key. >> didn't know what class interest meant? [laughter] >> the board meant either. but the -- so the point is -- it's not easy. one of the things we did, we've made a went think a long stretch of believing that tech no carats at the fed would do what was necessary which was wrong. it turns out when you have a good -- [inaudible] monetary policy is not enough. you need the government to down

with spending as well. it doesn't mean there is nothing you could do. there's a lot more in particular. very clearly it will not start raising rates of the of the labor market might be strong enough to generate wage increase which is is what it's doing right now. >> there's a major problem that we face as progressives trying to explain why it is the economy is performing the way it is. why it is americans are suffering and who is responsible. i think one of the major problems is that the american people, and most people around the globe, born here in the country don't see the economy as something that people are controlling and setting. people view the economy as something like the weather. sort of a natural forces that are impersonal. when an economic storm rolls in. there's not much people have done to put us in the position

and there isn't very much that we collectively that the government can do to get us out of this. that's one of the deep problems that we face. it feels like all of the solutions that we would be advocating require getting over that hump. erica, how is it when you were trying to advocate for the progressive economic solutions you dale with that problem? >> what i try to think of is you're delling a story -- telling a story okay and any story has a plot points. some are naturally existing some you need to create for yourselves. the unemployment figures come out, the unemployment numbers. another opportunity to tell a piece of the story. and i always talk to my team about need nothing know, you know, we want to know what we're doing and what really, really doing. when you look at the patriotic millionaires campaign, for example, if you raise taxes on

millionaires, great, you know, but it doesn't solve all of the problem. what we've done with that is inserted the word patriotic into the discussion around taxes. if you think about the government as a comean, which everybody is obsessed with doing. there's no a ceo on the planet who would take the job if they had 100 people who could veto every decision they made. that's on the company point. if you look at these at plot points what you want to do is understand the levels underneath that you're trying do. one of the issues with, you know, financial reform which was impossible to message is when people hear the words derive tits. they fall asleep. it's hard complex ideas to get your mind around. except it really isn't. it's pretty simple, in my opinion. a bunch of rich, privileged guys stole all of our money. that's what it comes down to. [laughter]

and i know it's more complicated i don't have the disadvantage of being close to ben bernanke. and, i mean, this is, you know, this is where lots of people to play different roles. it if you all will get out your telephones and plug. in our rich this week if you give us five minutes a day we can help move it along. every issue you hear about, environment, medicare, social security. if you get out the phone and put in the following number. 202452-2955. that's ben bernanke's phone number at the fed. okay. but, i mean, whatever. jamie dye month dimon president

of jpmorgan chase walking around like he's smarter. two weeks ago he lost $2 billion in a single trade. you don't know what you're doing anyway. this is a thing, he shouldn't be on the board of the new york fed. he shouldn't be on the board of the new york fed. end of story. it's not going to solve everything. but what it does, a little plot point in peoples' heads. it's a death by thousand kits. you take the moments to take down the power structures that are standing in the way of good, progressive policy. you take them down one by one systemically. you grab the the big opportunities you set yourself up to take the victory. you need to use the number and calm him and tell him and have jamie dimon resign from the fed. >> what's the number again?

>> 202--- you didn't write it down the first time? 202-452-2955. it goes directly to his office. you think he should get rid of jamie dimon. do it once a day for the next couple of weeks. it'll be fun. >> and end the depression now? >> yeah. >> a question from the audience is, i think an important one year. how do you talk about increasing wages when people are grateful to have jobs? >> it's a great question. can you hear me? the slogan that we use a lot in our organizing is protect what we've earned, and create what we need. so as we fight to protect our jobs, as we fight to keep our jobs, as we fight to protect

medicare, medicaid and social security. we need to simultaneously be fighting to create what we actually need this this country. and fundamentally if we don't put out there what it is we need we'll never be able to build the movement we need that has the pow we need to change the country once and for all. it's a question -- often talking about the notion that our demands have been too small to win. and we've relegated ourself to the defensive scythes to the and to the narrow issue-based kinds of demands that have been not allow us to unite the broad cross section of people of interest and folks communities, workers, that we actually need to be able to unite and build the power we need to take back the country and to really move toward our hopes and dreams. not only for ourselves but for our children. i would say that we do

absolutely need to work to fight to protect what it is we have. but if we don't assert what is right and what we need for ourselves and for fiewmp generations, we'll never get there. [applause] >> so there was a fun question that came from the audience. has anybody on this panel be contacted by the white house to ask them what they should do about the economy? >> well, i yes. i mean -- [laughter] what i can talk about ape what i can't. i mean, unfortunately, this is public knowledge that we're the left opposition economists on with the president and others

and during -- it was a critical period really early in the administration when the president had the most leverage and might have been able to do much more, and there was joe, and robert and other people. and we lost those arguments. it was embarrassing. [laughter] but it wasn't -- which is that the very assertive people, the guys who must go -- [inaudible] that were so rich even in an obama white house came across as actually having the answers. at this point, i do think that president figured out that they didn't. and but they have -- [inaudible] it's there was a critical moment when we could have done much

more which unfortunately passed. every notion is that all of the -- [inaudible] and that in particularly every notion is that obama and company are as bad as the rest and that's wrong. there is an open line of communication. there are listening with they still to some extent listen to the other people. it's not a lost hope. and so, yes, it's -- yeah. yes, i'm afraid that they didn't listen until it was too late. >> given, i actually think that most of us have been able to express our views at some point or another with members of the white house. and it seems like the answer was always show me the 60th vote. show me the political reality.

we are -- that was before the 2010 midterm election, right? we are now faced in the republican house with an insane economic agenda barreling down at us to implement the ryan plan, the romney plan, whatever it is that everyone taken seriously on the right is advocating and the cure for it, the moderate cure for it is suddenly somehow simpson-bowls which is a new reputuation of the new deal. it's no a complete reputuation of the new deal. it is a fundamental undoing of the last sixty years, let's put it that way. and so, where -- how do we make new political reality, and b., what would we actually say if we

got a back and forth with the political strategies at the white house and we said you should do this and this and this and create the middle class and the jobs. and they say we don't have the votes. what can we do in this moment. >> i really believe that -- [inaudible] or program and stick with it. and we force them to this way. think about this, a couple of years ago, the president was against same-sex marriage. this group -- you took that issue on and as much as anybody, you convinced that president that he had to come over to the right side of that issue. [applause] if all of us give ourselves a round of applause because you deserve it. that's what i'm saying. all of us have to start taking staking out the territory and staying with it publicly and privately. talking about whatever the president was talking about debt

reduction and forget jobs creation. we went public and a lot of us starting talking about he's making the strategic mistake, he's off in lala land. it's not going to happen. and finally he realized he was in the backyard playing their game on their rules and their turf. he came our way. he started talking about jobs and job creation. you have to have the reality of getting the votes. if we come together and we fill popular support. they won't have a choice. they'll goal rolled over like a bowling ball. and we'll have a different sense and game to play with. sticking with our story, demanding that not being asheemed -- ashamed not whisk

perking the member of the administration and private and -- [inaudible] saying it publicly to them as well. this is the solution, job creation, job creation, job creation will ultimately get you where we want to go. let not forget about a couple of things we talked about earlier. that there's nothing we can do about it. this is just sort of -- [inaudible] grains of sand on the beach and we get washed back. it's nonsense. this is about policy. it was a policy that lead trillions much dollars out of the bush tax cuts. those trillions of dollars could have been used to build education -- [inaudible] infrastructure, clean energy. [applause] [inaudible] and we're not for these are decisions and policy decisions. stick together, articulate the

policies and don't back up and don't apologize. that's the biggest mistake, i think, we say, yeah, we know. these public employees, i know they have pensions, but -- no, they have pensions and they ought to have pensions. [applause] >> heather, i really, i want to build on this point. i think it's so point. these are choices who made by people who have the ability to make other choices, okay. the financial crisis which cost this country one of the stupidest things i've heard them when the banks paid back the $7 50 million and they paid them back. when a car runs into a crowd of people and we give them money to fix the car. it's no the the tole of the

cause. they have not paid back what they did to this country. number one. okay. [applause] and i'm not going to believe they paid it back until we get money in the bank and until a bunch of them go to jail. okay. during the crisis, during the sl crisis there was about 1,000 felony convictions. it there have been zero felony scixes in that. -- convictions in that. one of these simon johnson who was able to come to the panel. simon wrote 13 bankers speaking of policy choices born with arguing with larry summers and bob reuben and i can't remember -- al lan greene -- alan greene span. she wanted to write a paper. larry summers called her and said i have 13 bankers in my

office who are telling me if you release this paper, you could cause the worst financial crisis since the great depression. concept paper is dangerous. unregulatedded derifftives market not dangerous. the idea that this administration and plenty of democrats listen to the bobby -- that's what i call them, bob rube night his followers. they move around and pass around new york. everybody is listen together bobbies. this is bobby's fault. he ended -- and walked into city group the next day and made $50 million. we need to bring that story and brick it hard. that's chunk of the problem that we have and again, it's not that complicated of a story. >> i just want -- one of the big problems that you said, i think we had with the white house in

the early months was they have the notion of -- so you to win every legislative battle. if you propose congress -- that's a terrible thing. which is that is just bad political thinking. public doesn't know, public doesn't care. they know two things. how the economy is doing, which at this point you don't have too much impact on and whether you stand for something. what you can do, depends which way i'm pointing here. you can stand for something. you can say, these people do nothing on the wrong side. [inaudible] not just for the current administration but for everybody. it is. give it to the right. they played a long game. they spent 40 plus years getting us to this point.

they started -- [inaudible] hopeless dreams for them. the dreams look like -- and they started with the hopeless dreams with things like eliminating the state tax and private social security. and by hammering at those things they brought it choice to reality. the disappoint, stand for something. and, you know, they have the advantage of 100 to 1. greater financing but on all the issues i've been writing about. progressives have one other advantage. we're actually right. [laughter] [applause] >> so speaking of the long game. if we look at the game of the next forty years out in 2062 we are going to be a country where there is no racial majority

anymore. i would like to argue and get thoughts from the panel here that they on the right, have seen that 40-year game in a much clearer way than we have on the left. that they were -- i was at the meeting with the high level of executive officials and he held up a map that the employer committee had greated for civil rights that showed where all of the attacks on our freedom to vote have happened. and then you can hold up a map of the 2008 election. and then you can actually do a third thing, unfortunately not mt. room in the moment where you can hold up a dem gracious concentration of people of the country. it maps pretty well. they have recognized on the right that this little experiment we call democracy is

fundamentally going to be a losing game for them. they need to attack our freedom to vote in order keep hold of power. they have recognized that they need to attack the strongest remaining set of unions in the country, and they have recognized that one of the reasons why is because where a majority of people of color are able to hold secure to the middle class jobs. they have done that calculation in a way they i don't think, i'd like to argue that we on the left have. have really seen . >> you can find the rest of the conversation online at c-span.org. we're going to take you live now florida congressman allen west is going to talk about ways to help small business in the african-american community. >> is not a good thing. [laughter] the personal responsibility

thing? good. it's a pleasure to have have you ever one of you. we have the spot to mrs. johnson. everyone knows i'm allen west from the florida's congressional district 22. [applause] thank you. we're going get right to the meat of why we're here. because i think this is a crirt call topic we have to talk about. and i got the little book here that every now and then i go back and read. it's called "rediscover black conservativism." written in. in the beginning over the past thirty years billions have of ever dollars have been poured into black communities across the country in hope of curing a host of well-documented socioeconomic problems including failing schools, inadequate housing, rampant crime and drug

abuse, black on black killing, unemployment and more. despite the courageous efforts of many local institutions, agencying school leaders, grassroots organizings and community residence, the problems remain. in many ine stances these problems have grown worse. i believe it will take new ideas and new voices to find solutions. and that is exactly why we're here today. we're hear today to talk about comim freedom as opposed to economic dependency. we're here today to talk about four basic conservative principles and how they can apply to economic revitalization for the economic community. limented government, phisly -- that leads to self-sufficiency is the free market that grows businesses at develops businesses an lastly and most importantly. it's about equality of opportunity that comes from a good education. these statistics i want to share

with you are the main reason we're here. unemployment today in the lack community is 14%. if you understand actual unploimentd it's probably closer to 18 maybe 20%. the highest average was last august when it hit 16.7%. black unemployment is the highest depression at 37 percent. median household income $35,000. you know about the federal reserve survey that came out last week that talked about the decrees in medium wealth income 40% decrees. food stamps, we know food stamps are up 45% in the united states of america in black community is at 22%. 32% of blacks liv below the poufty level. 40 40% of the prison system are black. this is the most telling. why we're here today and why we have the incredible panel lead

by incredible gentleman. i promoted you even though you were late. i believe in building you back up. entrepreneurship. the census in 2010 put of the percent of police station white 64% black 13% his panic and asian 5%. these are the numbers for 2011 60% new start up in the white. 23% in the his panic. 5% in the asian community. but with 13% of the population. you only see 9% of the new start-ups coming out of the black community. we have to talk about the urban. i can think of no one better than the gentleman we see on fox business news charles payne.

[applause] thank you. thank you. congressman west, when you have that panel on amtrak, i'd like to be a part of that too. [laughter] it's a good thing i'm on tv now i would have gotten here an hour earlier. i don't know what report he would have report afterwards. this is a serious topic, i'm honored to be here. some of you guys know me from fox news and business. i started a business out of a one-bedroom i participated as a broker and raising money for a locate of different businesses over the years through the ipo process and reverse take over process. i revisited my neighborhood yesterday in harlem. i have to tell you it's nice to see the old friends. it was scary it seemed like time had stopped and progress --

there is no true progress i can see being made. there certainly is a whole lot of work still to be done. that's why this is so important. -- i'm not going to demote anyone. i just -- you know, the pot calling the kettle -- everyone knows cornel west serves in florida ice 22 ted district. brow ward county and palm beach county along the south coastline. born and raised in atlanta the same neighborhood martin luther king, jr. was born. he preached to him and seen up close the devastating effects of failed government policies. can have on anyone in particular black neighborhoods. in 2004, after serving 22 years in the army west retired from

the military brought his family to south florida to be closer to his wife's family. the proud conservative and american patriot with the encouragement of friends and neighbors he decided to make a bid for congress. i don't know if you saw the famous youtube video, go on youtube and take a look at it. with a popularly grassroots approach, launched from being a virtual unknown to raising the highest amount of money for the -- [inaudible] the great thing that almost all of the donation pouring into the west campaign were from individual donors. absolutely remarkable and speaking of remarkable. the gentleman sitting next to him with the one of the most beautiful watches i've ever seen. i'm a watch guy. don't leave that laying around.

robert l. johnson founder and chairman rlj companies. founder of black entertainment television. hoe is the founder chairman of the rlj company the latest venture. innovative business networking provides strategic investmenteds and port portfolios of companies. hotel, private equity, financial service, asset management, insures services, automobile dictatorships, sports and entertainment. i bet anything eel else you name he'll provide it. prior to forming the companies he was the founder and chairman of black entertain television. the nation's first and leading television networking providing quality entertainment, music, news, and public affairs programming for rtd african-american audience. under the leadership it became the first african-american owned

company traded on the new york stock ebbing chain. if 2001 he sold it for approximately $3 billion give or take a few dollars. and he remained a chairman cfo in 2006. in 2007 he was named u.s.a. today's one of their 25 most influential business letters of the past to twenty five years. think about how many business leader there have been in the past twenty five years. what an accomplishment. robert l. johnson. [applause] >> thanks, charles for that introduction. you forget to tell everybody to go to the stock exchange abuy the hotel stock. rlj lodging. thank you, everybody, for this invitation. i'm delighted to be here. at the guest of congressman

west. congressman west, i live in west palm beach, and i'm proud to say i'm a voter in his district. even though i didn't vote for him. [laughter] i say that because -- [laughter] i say that in all seriousness, because everybody knows i'm a democrat. i've been a democrat all my life. the one thing i find most important about the fact that congressman west is speaking out as a voice on african-american issues because i want to quote something john conniers said when the congressional black caucus was formed. he said we should approach politics with no friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interest. i think having a voice from congressman west reinforcing the notion we should of ourself having permanent interest. and i'm delighted to work with

allen on a number of herbs -- issues that we see eye 0 eye while we may disagree on the r and d. we disagree on the need for the economic empowerment of african-american. as he pointed out most of you know me as the black entertainment television. we created a number of successful businesses and i say all of that to say that it's not necessarily because i'm the smartest kid on the block. in terms of opportunity it's because of one fact that i had early on when i started black entertaining it was television and sold it access to capital. if you can provide more access to capital to african-americans, charles would be talking about a number of people like myself who have been successful. so as an entrepreneur, i know

firsthand the challenge minority entrepreneurs face. i know, the talent, dedication, determination, and vision that minorities entrepreneurs possess in their desire to become a part of and contributor to the american dream. for many years now, i have been vocal about the state of black wealth and the daunting challenges minority business owners and entrepreneurs face and as a result of that, the entire black community using a term that most of you in business would clearly understand, i am afraid unless there are someistic -- realistic changes made for black american it is not a growing concern. it's debt is outstripping the resources. and therefore, it would more depent on transfer payments. that's a definition of nongoing concern. the lack of access to capital

and capital formation are the principal factors holding back opportunities minority businesses and as a consequence, wealth creation within the black community. a waive of economic statistics continued to escalade at further exacerbate the growing wealth gap that is directly impacting african-american companies which i calm a tsunami. consider these fact from a that tsunami. wealthy gap between white and african-american families is more than qaw trued -- the racial gap increase by 75,000 from $20,000 to $ate ,000. the median wealth is twenty times than black. it leaves 35% of african-americans have no net assets. a study by unite economy stated for every dollar a white

per-capita-income in 1968 african-americans have 55 centers. a this pace had would take african-americans nearly 581 years to give the remaining 34 centers at the income parity with whys. since the burst of the housing market and the recession that follows house values were principal cause -- as net worth of all americans particularly african-americans. as a result of these declines a net worth of black households from 12,000 in 2005 to $5,677 in 2009. a decline of 53%. compare that to the net worth of typical white house which is approximately $1 13,000.

our nation's economy and the global economy is confronting major challenges. the likes of which we have not seen as since the great depression. they will only serve to magnify the grouting wealth disperty unless it is addressed. the indies piewtble facts point that middle income whites have far more wealth than even some high income african-americans. equally disturbing education success achieved by many african-americans has not lead to a racial wealth equality. to change the reality, we have to increase, we morses increase -- must increase access to capital. frmples fall way behind in incoming capital. white american has an 8.2 unemployment rate. the rate for african-americans is close to double that.

that is something we you must understand. throughout my entire life. the african-american employment rate has always been double that of whites. ask me what circumstance would any nation tolerate a generation of 16 to 17 percent unemployment for any population. we are today arguing over an 8.2 unemployment rate for the empire country. black america has consistent had had an employment rate double of white americans. those that were in society who were generating wealth as a result of the beginning to look a scant -- supporting those who they deem to be nonproductive. ie, the big population of unemployed americans. you have one group of and

another group argue we have to protect entitlement. that is the nature of our debate today. that is the nature that will be played out in the 2012 election. adding to the growing political conflict is the fact that the minority population, blacks and hispanics receiving the transfer of happen to be the fastest growing demographic group in the country. as a result, the population that is paying, feels they are continually being financially squeezed because they believe they're transferring money to a nonproductive growing class of people. this is a prescription for the kind of political that is taking place in the u.s.a. today. republicans are saying no new taxes. democrats are saying we must protect entitlement.

we are politically in a zerosome gain and most african-americans are in the middle of that fight with no ability to control their own destiny. how do you change that paradox? first, you must recognize that unemployment rate for african-americans is not because they do not believe in hard work or in billing wealth for their family. there is, in my opinion, a racial component to the unemployment and wealth gap between african-americans and white americans that has to be addressed. unfortunately, this country is uncomfortable with addressing the racial component but until we have a real dialogue about it, in my opinion, the gap will grow wider. to address the excelling crisis, i suggest if we're going to close the wealth gap and the

unemployment gap. we must engage in a dialogue about what i call rate recognition remedy. at the highest levels of government as well as between black and white americans. i recognize that public policy based on racial preferences is extremely provocative and controversial. but controversy should not prevent a reasonable dialogue about a societal dilemma that is real and economically devastating in the potential to millions of african-american families. inwish the answer to close in the -- and acceptable as proponents to make our public schools better. for minorities to be retrained for the new job market. and to aggressively enforce laws against racial and economic discriminate. as congressman west pointed out,

over the years the nation has been committed to these and spent billions of dollars but these efforts have not and will not close the black wealth gap. therefore to initiate a dialogue on how to enhance black businesses and increase black wealth and therefore black opportunity, i propose a following policy proposals number one, allow black businesses to be eligibility for government contracts if they own 10% of a business rather than the existing 51% rule. keep in mind, the 51% rule says that if you're black, if you don't own 51% of your company we don't believe you're really black. and therefore, it's a crime. well, the reason people say it's a because they know black people can't amass 51% of the equity to start a business.

it they give you the cash-22. we know you don't have the money to start the business, but to make sure your real business, you have to have 51%. why not 10% of the equity of a business, equal to the ratio of black income to white income? encourage minority owned -- encourage majority owned businesseses to invest in black-owned companies by dereceiver -- tax program which existed for over twenty years which motivated major white media companies to tell tv stations to minorities. here's how it worked. a white guy had six radio stations. he wanted to sell it. if he sold it to african-american the particular owner, the white owner would get a government tax certificate defeverring his capital gains or e lame nateing entirely if he

reinvested the money into another media property. why not do the same thing across all businesses for minorities and women so that give business people and investors would take a chance on investing in a minority business because the business hit the capital gains would be reduced significantly. there by reducing their risk of investing with the minority business assuming they were concerned about the risk. it's a way to use the tax policy to encourage companies on a voluntary basis to invest in minority businesses. the second thing, number three, allow african-american families earning less than $250,000 annually to defer federal income taxes without answers -- ..

>> the government would get its money back through reclaiming once the 401(k)s cashed in, they would get it even with deferred interest if you wanted to it that way. but at the end of that period that family would have accumulated a certain amount of net worth or had enough money to buy a home or send their kids to school. number four, create a treasury backed fund to securitize short-term borrowing for emergency loan made by minority banks or other lending institution to black families,

provided these loans are marketed and made in a regulated and transparent manner. the securitize alone would encourage these banks and other banks and lenders to make short-term our emergency borrowing available at reasonable rates, and and minority dependence on payday lending as we know it today. payday lenders take close to $4 billion annually out of the pockets of african-americans who can least afford it, because when they need a short-term emergency bar or broken down car, a broken refrigerator or leak in the roof, they have no place to go not to payday lenders. the payday lenders charge anywhere from 350-400% apr. people who can least afford it are forced to spend billions of dollars to borrow their own money. now, finally can require the large banks under the committee investment, we investment back to find a nationwide remarketing

campaign targeted to the black community with the focus on financial literacy and savings. there's nothing wrong with encouraging african-american families to defer consumption. to focus on savings, to focus on investment. as charles would point out, one of the biggest reasons minorities have a lower net worth than white americans, we are not invested in the public stock market. we have no equities in investment. anything that can be done to hire minority marketing companies and minority funds to target african-americans on savings and investment are in the best interest of this country. many of these proposals incorporate some form or another current policy, and is usually based on economics. what we have done, because we don't want to talk about race recognition disparities, we have use economic disparity as the laffer to get at these discussions. so there are programs that would qualify for everybody, everyone who is black -- anybody who

needs a certain benefit can get it because it is economic. but economic disparity does not deal with the disputable fact of generations of race discrimination. so you're not going to change that policy if you don't focus on race recognition. so i am personally committed to working towards a viable consensus on how to grow and expand minority business ownership and opportunities in america, and to propose real business solution to close the racial wealth gap. and tell, ladies and gentlemen, until we achieve such a remedy, we will not have an environment in which black wealth can expand, entrepreneurs can prosper, and black americans can fully participate in the american dream. thank you. [applause]

>> let's have a hand for robert johnson. [applause] >> i think the key word was controversial. we are going to definitely get into a discussion with some of the things that were brought up just now with the panel. i want everyone to know, everyone will be involved in this. where billy going to start moving into. i know a lot of people are anxious. a lot of people taking notes. i see a lot of foot tapping the i even saw some grinding of teeth. [laughter] what i want to finish doing is introducing the rest of the panel. panelists, please may be one, two minutes to tell us more if i missed something so we can really get into this. because to be quite frank with you i had a whole bunch of things i wanted to talk about. but almost at the next two hours just on the things robert mentioned up here. art laffer, founder chairman and ceo of laffer associates. dr. laffer currently lives in

nashville tennessee, founder and chairman of his own firm, and economic and research consultant firm. he was a consultant to secretary of treasury william simon, also secretary of defense donald rumsfeld. secretary-treasurer chart shows. you get a feeling this guy of stuff. he's also was a member of ronald reagan's economic and policy advisory board for both his terms 81-89 and he was a number of the executive committee of ronald reagan close finance committee 1984, founding member of the reagan executive advisory committee. he was also an advisor to prime minister margaret thatcher of fiscal policy in the uk which, of course, was a really famous time that solidified her as the iron lady if you will. dr. laffer. [applause] >> is there anything you want to add to that? >> no, you're pretty kind to me, charles.

>> will add handsome, too. >> was a professor at the university of chicago. >> we won't hold that against you. kay debow, cofounder national black chamber of commerce, actually it's ms. kay debow alford now, is that right? [inaudible] >> executive vice president of national black chamber of commerce, also cofounded nbcc in 1993, on her business over several years and administration with the minority chamber of commerce also as an owner of a successful franchise and independent video stores, earned a national and international respect and corporate circles for her stewardship of the chamber's signature annual convention in addition to their responsibilities, for the organization, personnel budget, administration, newsletter and event planning. she supervised every aspect of the world's largest and most influential convention dedicated

to african-american business development. kay debow alford. [applause] >> thank you. that was good. that was perfect. >> thank you very much. u.s. black chamber, toya powell, director of governmental engagement at the u.s. black chamber focusing on advocacy, access to capital, we've heard that already, contracting, training, chamber development to promote economic empowerment for small businesses and chambers nationwide. prior to this, she was a real estate economist, and in boston monitoring commercial real estate markets and working with developers. pension funds and institutional investors. she's also a business opportunity specialist reviewing applications for firms that were seeking small disadvantaged business loans and we will talk to that and see how we can connect with some of the proposals that robert johnson just brought up. toya, thank you very much.

[applause] >> thank you. >> representative mack bernard, state representative of florida. he's been representing florida state since 2009, preserving district 84 representative bernard is a democratic ranking member of the economic development to her subcommittee, additional is a member of the business and community affairs committee, the civil justice subcommittee, and health and human services committee, the house redistricting subcommittee, the insurance and banking committee, the redistricting committee, as well as transportation and economic development appropriations subcommittee. i'm surprised they had time to let you go. prior to his election, he served as deputy vice mayor of the delray beach city commission from 2008-2000. he held a position as managing partner, since 2007. representative bernard. [applause] >> thank you.

>> harry alford, president ceo of the national black chamber of commerce. mr. alford is the president and cofounder of national chamber, black chamber of commerce. he's been responsible for opening doors that lead to billions of dollars in new business in the black community. for black owned firms throughout this nation and acted as a leader within the black unity and joint the rebuilding of the golf course in the aftermath of hurricane katrina. his religious energy and advocacy in helping come is hoping afford international business opportunities for african-americans and emerging entrepreneurs in africa, the caribbean, south america. for this work he was formally named ultra ambassador by united states department, state department rather. harry alford. [applause] >> i'm also on the board of the u.s. chamber of commerce spirit also on the port of the u.s. chamber of commerce. >> and where the largest black business association in the

world. >> on the board of the chin of commerce, also you should be ready for affairs committee, right? >> that's correct. >> ashley bell, district four commission, all county georgia. ashley bell was elected in 2008 at age 27 to become a hall counties youngest ever commission and one of its youngest in the state of georgia. commissioner bell is a graduate of gainesville high, and attended law school, he is a successful attorney and partner, practicing law through the state of georgia. also honored to be the 21st century leader fellow at the harvard university, john f. kennedy school of government. ashley bell. [applause] >> you just change parties recently, right? okay. ruth c. jones, city manager, riviera beach from florida. she's producers as the cement for rivera beach, a city that has 7% african-americans,

particular work as city manager in june 2009, she served as deputy counsel, county manager. also assistant county manager for seven years. she played a key role in the developing of the county's overall budget, was totaled nearly $1 million. this jones convinced that riviera beach is the right place at the right time but she says i think all of us together, even in these challenging times we can show strength and work to create long-term success. ruth c. jones. [applause] >> emily murphy, senior counsel small business committee. senior counsel to the committee on small business in the u.s. house of representatives, specializing and contracting and workforce issues. this is her second time with the committee. she worked in government contracting, lending and telecommunications issues in the 1990s. she has focus on federal

procurement issues, most recently spending four years as chief counsel and vice president of operations at a startup satellite communications company in addition to time practicing government contract lawyer, she has served as the associate administrators, administered for government contracting of the u.s. small business administration, and this chief acquisition officer of the u.s. general services administration. the gsa. ms. murphy is a graduate of smith college and university of virginia school of law. emily murphy. [applause] >> and there'll dj jordan, director small business committee. there'll dj jordan has been a communications director from house of representatives committee on small businesses since february 2011. before that he was a communications director for congressman robert addie hall of alabama since june 2008. he worked in journalism in the washington bureau for a fox news and cnn.

that's a good one. at fox, jordan was assigned to was that the assignment desk editor. is also the producer coming congressional and political events from january 2007 until may 2008. at cnn he worked in the production chain, the situation room with wolf blitzer, larry king live, and anderson cooper 360. is and gentlemen, this is your panel. [applause] there are some specific things we want to cover today. you know, the obstacles that are preventing minority business ownership we've already heard from mr. johnson on some of his theories on the. policies and regulations that might negatively impact black community from establishing business. also want to know about the role of government which obviously is issues today and will be the key issue in november's election.

less government involvement, will that help foster minority businesses? looking a policy program legislation currently in place, that might need an overhaul because this is not a pity party did will talk about some plans of action that need to be taken. the kind of legislation that does work that needs to be implemented, and work with any kind of teams or any sort of caveat. and also, what the panel plans to do to sort of follow up from today. so if i could, and i heard robert johnson said he was going to leave. so just real quickly, because you struck a nerve on a few things, but you said right now if someone owns 51% of his business, other ones may think it's a front. certainly 10%, either 10% of tax breaks, deferred payments, how will the rest of america feel, because we saw this survey where everyone is wealthy enough to where everyone's income is down

to how will the rest of america feel with this sort of preferential treatment? [inaudible] >> very quickly because i will let the other panelists be. the issue is this, america is going to confront this problem either way. you cannot have the fastest growing demographic group in the country being unemployed or underemployed. they can't consume. if they can't consume, there's no way this country can compete. and so you have to address this problem. so how would the american people feel? american people are compassionate on economic issues. we have programs for the poor. because we say, i guess we assume the poor are in your situation due to no fault of their own. but we can be compassionate about earned income tax credit. we can become passionate about food stamps and everything else. so i'm just saying we have to

add another equation to that. it's called being african-american. and targeted to african-americans are most in need. not need necessarily. -- not mean necessarily but african-americans who are in need to you take the tens and 51 but why is it that people can look at jamie dimon, who i guarantee you does not own 10% of jpmorgan chase, and nobody will ever question whether jamie dimon is in charge of that bank. why is it that an african-american who wants to start a business, let's say the business cost $100,000, he has 10. he doesn't have 51,000 which would give him 51. $10,000 for an african-american walking around with $10,000 in their pocket? is a lot of money for an african-american. keep in mind, there in the same situation economically i talked about. so why does he have to have 51? why can't he just have 10, and

they said a minority qualified this is because he's in control, because he raised $10,000, and get whatever government says. why does it have to be pushed to 51? the fact of the 51 is people feel that minorities would be use, some like i, give me $10,000, and then say i'm in charge of 51, and then go out and get government money. the cynicism is that passionate and that, but the cynicism is based on feedback. we don't have 51%. but we might have 10%. so change the policy to 10%. but the bottom line is, america, and lets you face the fact that there is something that has to be done to close the wealth gap between minorities and african-americans and white americans, you are going to have a population group that's going

to be nonproductive. >> thank you. harry alford, a national black chamber of commerce, i think your model or your logo, slogan is where business begins. angie's outlined several goals to achieving that including education and training the masses. do you think you need to be an increased role with respect to the federal government in helping you achieve and the people in this room achieve what we want to achieve? >> yeah, i think so. the government needs to back off and get out of her way but i think the department of education with the gainful employment rule, which wants to take away financial aid in schools that have a lower payback rate by the graduates, namely, more profits goes to graduate a majority of african-american students in this country, hc you, they want to go after them and shut them down. we want an educated workforce. and i think the least government

as jefferson says, the better the government is. i think all these rules and regulations they're talking about his access to capital, the frank dobbs yo will probably get 80% of the possibility of african-americans getting funding through traditional banks. just based off that one off. and i think as they say these days, party like it's 1992, because that's the value of your money today. >> that's referring to the report. some of you may seem, 2010, the net worth of the average american 77,000, down from 126,003 years before that it would have been interesting in the report is every category saw the net worth go down. your net worth went from 120,000, 100,000 to 55,000 at the irony is if you didn't work at all, your net worth went from six granted 12 granted that's a strange strange and climate we live in, congressman west.

>> i would agree. i sit on the committee of small business. the reoccurring theme for everyone that comes up before us, black, white, hispanic, three things. the owners tax policy and inserting of the tax policy. it is the regulatory environment, the lack of access to capital to everyone talks about this. you know, the dodd-frank swung the pendulum too far. they're swinging the penalty far, the small committee banks end up suffering the most to the small community banks that can help to reestablish that great relationship with the inner-city community, because they know individuals and they can help out with, as mr. johnson talks about. made we can reduce the amount of equities that is required. i say you put that in a limited time span because you want to be able to have an incentive, have a boost to the system. i don't think we're talking indefinitely do that. but coming back to what we are

doing financial institutions, at the lowest levels. so that we can once again open up that infusion of capital. also i think a critical aspect of this is the education. not just having big banks come down and have financial literacy boards, but think about the things we're not teaching in these high schools and inner-city communities anymore. i remember, i graduated from high school in atlanta, georgia, and we sat down and we actually had to balance a checkbook. we actually went through financial management. we did those type of things in understanding cash flow. we've got a great program with junior achievers down in broward college in coconut creek, florida, where we actually bring in not high schoolers, we started bringing kids in middle school, seventh graders and eighth graders, and we teach them about here's the budget, here's your business that you have to run. i think it's never too early to start to do those things, and i think that's -- if you want to

talk about start point, the start point really is, you know, reestablishing a sense of fiscal responsibility and fiscal education within the black community. we're not doing that anymore. and what you end up seeing, everyone is about disposal -- disposable income. i will take this. this is my anecdotal story. my dad taught me about the stock market, making me sit down to read boxscores and live scores for baseball games, football games and understanding all this type of stuff. then all of a sudden the next thing i know he's got me looking us in different type of boxscores. he said this is how you make your money grow. he taught me that as when i was in high school. so that's the type of stuff we had to come back to. that's another important aspect. we've got a breakdown in the back -- the black family. one thing i did not mention today, husband and wife, the black community, 20%.

that leads to fit in education. that leads to a failure in urban economic and statistics and vital sections. >> amen. there's no doubt about that. [applause] emily murphy, you have a unique background, because you spent some time recently with a startup, which is essentially what we are talking about. you also, you're on the committee for small businesses at the house of representatives, and you also worked at the sba. we've talked a lot about access to capital. i have dealt with as be in the past and i always felt like you already have to have the money to qualify for the money. how do minorities get back to the government money that they're sitting on? [inaudible] i'm not the expert of government contracting, not lending program. but i was asking our expert beforehand about what's going on, and he gave me some great specifics on loans at sba. i said that the sba's largest

program lending to small businesses, only 5% of the loan recipients are african-americans. so which raises an important question of why? you look back at the past decade, just five years ago, 2004 -- 2002-2007, you will find the minority businesses started over double the rate of any other businesses, yet last you would look at how small business were doing, particularly out of an american businesses, they got 8% drop in the amount of contracts they were receiving. so what's happened in the past five years? that's an important question we have to be addressing. we seem to missing out on that equality of opportunity. one of the things mr. west has been working on with our committee has been a bill on contract finally. trying to make sure a contract is structured in such a way that all small business, particularly african-american small business,

minority owned small businesses, can compete with them. because that's all business owners. that helps create jobs. that brings down the cost that we as taxpayers pay for goods and services to we end up with a healthier international base. everyone wins. >> we are going to i guess talked a lot about government and their role here, but congressman west brought up a fantastic point with respect to come and want to turn this to ruth c. jones, because such a large -- >> just saying, if i could please. the main reason why it is dropping, in october 2008, the sba no longer certified business is a small. it becomes self certification, which means elizabeth warren up in massachusetts can now be an sec and is wrought with fraud right now, but the showtime comes when these fronts come up there and get their sba lending

money, they are not like. they are not hispanic. they are native american from 132nd parts of the blood. so that's the big problem if they need to shut the program down and we certify everybody. >> i've got to tell you that sounds like an edge to lots of government policies and government -- >> we could probably scrape the whole thing at the same time. this is where, you know, again what ruth jones said, in your town from what i read, your per capita income is significantly below the rest of the state. poverty, the last i saw, 23% versus 13% for the state, and even less than that for america. what role does the lack of family structure play in that? >> charles, it plays a major role in the development and success and structure in which we are working. if you look at the data and

information as relates to family, when you do not have the family structure of the father, the mother teaching. and it could be the mother teaching, but it's the teaching inside of the household that, before you go outside, you know what you need to do. so that's a very important part of the structure, as well as the family encouraging education. so we will continue to strive and continuing encouraging our young people to get into business, to be on to porno to save and to invest it with also got to teach them -- would you say the most important and credible plan that robert johnson could think of with respect to government and banks teaching about people but this for financial literacy is it possible to succeed without any sort of backup within the household itself?

can government do it on? >> government can't do it alone, but the family can do it. my great grandmother was a slave. she put all her family in a boxcar. she didn't have it in the household. she went and earned and she taught us about money. psyche believe that you can do it but it's going to take everyone. it's going to take the family. it's going to take the parents. it's going to take the church, because that's your biggest area right there. and more of our churches need to be teaching investment and financial independence, and have to start businesses. you go meet the people were the people are. if the people are at church or in those particular activities, that's what we've got to go into to strengthen our families and to teach our individuals, in this particular organization, as well as the churches how to manage money, how to save, how to invest. because the word says a man leaves an inheritance to his

children's children. >> thank you very much. art laffer -- [applause] art laffer, you're a free market warrior. congressman started this off by trying to free markets but, in fact, i think with a gigantic battle over in europe at this very moment about the notion of free markets and you know, and it gets almost also back to robert johnson's point about people who are working and paying extraordinarily, extraordinary taxes are people who aren't working. ..

>> you're going to have lots and lots of poor people and no rich people. you know, if there are two locations, a and b, you raise taxes in b and you lower them in a, producers and manufacturers and people are going to move from to. this, as larry gatlin says, this isn't rocket surgery. [laughter] >> and everybody in the room is familiar with larry gatlin. >> but if i can, as the children's children, i love that very much because i've got six children, as you know, charles, and i've got 11 grandchildren, we're just beginning. but let me just tell you if i can just to pull back, you need the right environment for all these other policies to take place. you can't just have a family in a vacuum doing something and throw the kid out, or you can't have a school sitting there and have the kid go into an environment that doesn't work. i mean, you've really got to have the right environment. if you look at the environment today, i mean, you can see it's

u.s. tax structure. and it's not just tax rates. government spending is taxation. and i've got to explain it to you because, you know, it's so complicated in a 315-million person world with chinese capital flows and credit default swaps and multipliers. you just get dizzy. you can't follow the tea accounts. but if it's good economics, it works just as well in a two-person world as it does in a 315 million-person world. good economics are scaleable. are all of you with me? if it makes sense, it makes sense across the whole range. a two-person world you can see it. imagine for a moment we have two farmers, farmer a and farmer b. that's it, nothing else. that's it, nothing else outside this world. if farmer b gets unemployment benefits, who do you think pays for 'em? i mean, i'm not going way over your heads here. and yet i hear larry summers, and i hear austan goolsbee, and

i hear paul krugman, and i hear joe stiglitz, all of my colleagues, talking about how we need to stimulate the economy with more government spending. government doesn't create resources, it redistricts resources. redistributes resources. to people who didn't produce them. it just makes no sense. state governments, too, look at what's happened to my home state. and forgive me for being a little cheaf fistic here, but i'm from cleveland, ohio. and in 1972 cleveland did not -- ohio did not have an income tax. we had more fortune 500 headquarters in ohio than any other state in the nation. we were the booming state. and all of a sudden they came in and west virginiaized my home state. [laughter] i went back to cleveland. my mom and dad were born in cleveland, all four of my grandparents were born in cleveland, we're all up there in the cemetery, i went and visited my family and went and saw 'em all, and then i drove around cleveland. have you seen cleveland? eleven states in the last 50 years have introduced a

progressive income tax. eleven. maine, connecticut, new jersey, pennsylvania, ohio, wisconsin, illinois, michigan, you know, all these -- indiana, west virginia i mentioned. each and every one of those 11 states, even and every one of them has declined as a share of the u.s. economy. >> art, let me ask you, though -- >> some of them by a lot. >> but you think there is a farmer a and a farmer b, but a farmer b is black, are there some built-in disadvantages that you -- how can an economist -- >> let me tell you what i do. >> how can an economist factor that stuff into your model? >> oh, you can, and you can isolate for different effects, there are statistical ways of doing that. let me tell you what i did propose many, many years ago. i was at the university of chicago, and i was a young faculty member there. the first thing you notice when you're on the south side of chicago, you're not a majority anymore. and you notice all the black ladies going up to the suburbs

in the morning on the trains and all the white men coming down and getting off. you quickly see a problem. i wrote something called enterprise zones. this is a macro top-down. what i proposed was in the inner city in my neighborhood, i lived in south shore, that in my neighborhood there be no payroll tax, no income tax up to a certain level, you get rid of the teenage minimum wage. these kids don't go to prep schools like i did, they don't go to yale like i did, they don't go to graduate schools like stanford like i did and got my mba and ph.d.. they start right off out of high school. they're not worth the minimum wage. and they won't be hired because they're not worth it. and after being unemployed for a couple of years, they become unemployable. after being unemployable for a couple of years, they become hostile. and then you have to spend a fortune protects yourself from these kids. look at what the stats that you had out here. black teenage unemployment today, do you realize how long

that's been going on? i mean, do you -- that's a macroeconomic problem. that's not a family problem, a capital access problem. this is macroeconomics that's killing a commitment, and these kids will never be allowed back into the mainstream. >> right. >> they're lost. six years. a kid 16 years old six years ago is 22 today, not had a job? what do you do? you need to change the top first. to get the snake, you've got to cut its head off. you can't cut it, you've got it right at macroeconomics, federal, then state and local, then you can work on the micro ones. but i would beg you, charles, please, please, put first things first. >> all right, thank you very much. you know, it's interesting you say that. in spain, which is a real gigantic welfare state that's, obviously, in a lot of problems right now and the reason our market's been under a lot of pressure, of people under 30, one-fifth have never had a job which illustrates what art's talking about.

the smart ones are leaving, and the others are just depending on more and more government aid. toya, according to your web site blacks own 1.9 million businesses, about 7% of the total, but what they make is only .05% of the total. what are the specific challenges for these black and minority businesses? >> so there are a number of challenges, but many of them have been mentioned. advocacy, the access to capital, contracting, entrepreneur training, chamber development. those are our five pillars of service, and we know that capital has been a barrier to entry for many of our businesses. and some of the ways that we are addressing that is through our national foot print. so we have 107 chambers, 20 states, 240,000 small businesses that we're supporting across the country. and we understand that in order to have successful black communities, you have to have successful black businesses. and in order to have successful black businesses, you have to have successful black chambers

with strong leaders that are equipping them with the tools to be successful. so one of the ways that we are addressing these challenges is with our upcoming school of chamber management. there's been a lot of conversation today about education, and we understand that our leaders have to be educated. so those that are in the field, you know, responsible for connecting with the business owners, we're going to be training them around our five pillars of service to help them be better leaders. and so with the new tools they can go back into their communities and provide them with the relationships that they need. so some of the business owners, they don't have -- when you're trying to meet payroll on a day-to-day basis and you're out in arizona or you're in austin, texas, you don't have time to keep up with what's going on in this d.c., on capitol hill. so we try to educate them, put out a monthly president's message that lets them know what's going on, keep them educated, keep them informed so they can make better decisions. >> thank you very much. congressman west? >> before we get too far, i

think one of the important things that dr. laffer brought up, there has to be a synergy with the public sector, a synergy that goes from the federal level to the state level to the county level down to the local municipality. that enables to have, you know, there may be a top-down planning, but there has to be a bottom-up remine finement because that's the closest level is government done locally. and what the federal government is doing, you know, in my little 18 months that i've been here, we're pushing too many unfunded liabilities and mandates -- >> yes, you are. >> -- down on the states which then in turn go down further to the local level, and we're the ones that are causing the dry-up, as you say, of the capital and the opportunity. so i think that what's most important for us here at the federal government level is to go back and understand what are our right and proper roles and responsibilities? because we're getting to the point where we're micromanaging

down to that lowest level. and if we really sit back, and this is one of the things i harp on. we really sit back and look at how do we reduce the size and scope of the federal government, then that's less of what farmer a has to provide to come up to here to go back down to farmer b. so at the local level we could do a lot more. and then you're putting capital back in people's pockets so that they can go out and invest locally. you know, small businesses are suffering. and if i'm right, that's 80-85% of the economic engine of the united states of america. but we're crushing 'em. the national federation for independent businesses said in a survey about a couple months ago only 8%, only 8% of small businesses are looking to grow and expand here within this next year. so i think that it really starts with a tax code reform that has to happen, regulatory reform, the right type of legislation that, you know, aligns us with our roles and responsibilities here. and we've got, the federal government's getting too big. we cannot do everything for everybody in the united states of america from cradle to grave.

we just cannot. and as i said, we are looking at the growth of a welfare entitlement state. i'm not talking about medicare, medicaid, social security. that's mandatory spending programs. but i am talking about the fact where if you can sit at home and get more largess from the federal government than someone is actually going out and working hard, then you're disincentivizing people the to go out and work hard which means what? you cannot grow businesses because they won't be able to have anyone out there to work it. one of the big problems we see, and we go back down to the district. people who are looking to be paid under the table in cash so they can continue to get the unemployment benefits from the federal goth. and remember -- federal government. and remember, once upon a time unemployment benefits maxed out 26-27 weeks. the federal government made the decision to take it to 99 weeks. that's counterintuitive to the free market and getting people working again. so, you know, we've got to create that synergy through the

levels of government and, you know, i'd like to hear, you know, the perspectives from my brethren at the state level and also at the county level about how we're affecting you all. >> let's do, that representative bernard. how are we impacting the state level? >> well, first of all, i get to see it from -- i represent district 84 in florida, and ruth jones is a city manager in one of the cities that i represent, and district 84 is kind of like one of those sprawling districts, and it includes, like, rivera beach, west palm beach, and if you go out to the western part of the district, it includes belgrade and south bay. and hearing some of the unemployment rate is, like, 16%, if i had that in my district, i would be, like, jumping for joy. i have -- in bell divide and south bay, the unemployment over there is 40%. so i get to see it from a whole different perspective where so,

like, when i go to tallahassee, there's a lot of rhetoric about what's right, what's left and everything, but me it's like what are we doing to create jobs and, you know, how can i bring back jobs to my constituents? so that's the reason why i sit on the insurance and banking, business and consumer affairs and transportation and economic development so in that way we can change that whole area. one of the things that we're working in the district is we're bringing something called an inland port to the glades community where with the expansion of, the widening of the panama canal, we're going to create an inland port which should create 10,000 jobs out there. imagine if you create 10,000 jobs where you have an area with an over 40% unemployment. but sitting on the business and consumer affairs, what i do is i work on -- we have something called a black business investment corporations. we have about eight of them in the state of florida, and in the past 25 years the bbic as you

would call it, they have loaned about $20 million -- they've received $20 million from the state government. however, they've loaned over $90 million in 25 years. and that's, that's a model that is, you know, i think it's only -- >> are those empowerment zones? >> no, these -- no. >> actual bank. >> yes, they are actual banks. and one of the things that i just -- like, what i do is i make sure that the bbic gets funded. however, in tallahassee the makeup of the legislature, there's 81 republicans and 39 democrats, and some of the regulations that i've seen coming from the legislative body just to prevent them from lending money, so what i want to do is make sure that they're able to lend money and lessen the government regulations that are in tallahassee. another issue that i've worked on is the state small business credit initiative, that's the

ssbci, and where the state of florida received over $90 million to lend money to small businesses. and i -- before the state of florida received that $90 million, $43 million were already allocated to other programs. and in the remaining we tried to get just some of the black business investment corporations and the hispanic businesses, and we have not been able to get any of the dollars. so from the state level, you know, congressmen, what we want to see -- if these monies are coming from the federal government that they can get to the small business investment, get to the bbics because they lend money out, and so -- because i'm having lot of problems where we're not able to get those money to the bbics. and even the nonprofit cdfis, they're not able, we're not able to work with the federal government in terms of the

nonprofit cdfis -- >> the money is coming, but someone is hijacking the money? i mean, who controls the pursestrings here? >> the sba sees it as competition. they're going to be the ones to lend money to the maul businesses, and these bbics, they're no good. >> so, but 90 million is allocated -- >> and i can't get a dime. >> the sba is stopping it. we've got lawsuits out there. it's the sba. >> is that right, representative bernard? >> i just want to get the money, i'm not trying to -- [laughter] la -- >> and congress, i will take that up. since i'm on the committee, i'll take that up with -- >> congress means well, but they politely ask for opinions and referrals from the sba. and sometimes i think that stands for stop black africans. [laughter] >> so, but to the point about sba, i mean, sba has been very

intentional lately about creating innovative products to get more money flowing. so we should give them some credit for, you know, the community advantage loan, the 7a, the 7js, the 504s. i mean, it is a -- >> it would be great if they were competitive, if we had competition and they could pour money into the bad luck community. >> the loans have dropped from the sab. >> let's go to ashley bell because, first of all, you're very young, you're dynamic, you've already changed parties, you've hit with a pleasure, and you're the commissioner, district 4 commissioner in georgia. you've heard what we have talked about here today, the challenges, what can be done. on a more localized level to help businesses. >> there's no clamoring for any more regulations, i'll tell you that. no one's looking for additional regulations at the federal or state level. what i heard dr. laffer mention as far as empowerment zones, we

take the opportunity created by the federal government to create empowerment and opportunity zones. but there's so many regulations on where they can be. it took us at hall county about two months to figure out, well, we knew where we wanted them to go, but they didn't fit the federal regulations on where they thought they might go. but i tell you, we would know better where to put those zones than the federal government would. >> right. >> so many be times we're losing out on opportunity because they don't see the faces of people we see every day looking for jobs. they tell us that, you know, we have to move the empowerment zone, you know, five miles this way, but we know there's a business waiting to come. so for us we don't see it in terms of black and white. and i'll be honest with you, there would be -- to have more race-based regulation is not the way to go. i think to have more race-based regulation says that we're teaching our schools that one child will have a different

outcome than another. we can't legislate outcomes. you can't pass a law to say one person's going to have a better outcome than other, and i think the parents and the people teaching our kids see we're a different america, and the last thing we need to do is go back to a segregated america and expect them to act differently when they get older. >> so with respect -- [applause] what would you say to those who say the world you're talking about does sort of exist, that there's sort of a built-in disadvantage, if you will, with the current school systems, so maybe this utopian world that you might see doesn't truly exist just yet in. >> i don't say it's utopian. i say that this is america. i'll say this, your -- you have a problem, but that problem exists at the local level. there's nothing the federal government can do to change, to help create the best social program we've ever seen. that's called a family. that's called a man and a woman and children within a household. there's nothing the federal

government can do to change that. so at the end of the day, you know, we have to go back to the basics. we have to educate our children on what it means to start an enterprise. i've owned my own business since i was 21 years old -- >> right. >> and i never came looking to the sba or anyone to help me start it. >> hold on a second. >> yeah, i want to respond to that not in the sense of saying that there shouldn't be any, that everything i advocated was based on race, but i would argue that the reason we're here today and everybody here's black except the young lady up here -- >> well, you know. [laughter] >> you're right, go ahead. >> now he's red. [laughter] >> he spent some time with james brown, so don't worry about it. [laughter] >> he hung out on the south side of chicago.

[laughter] all right, all right. the reason we're all here talking about this is tied to one thing and one thing only, and that is race. otherwise we wouldn't be here. and so i'm not saying, what i'm suggesting is this country was built on a controversial issue of race and race discrimination in the form of slavery. and we have existed for over 200 years with that psychosis as part of our lives. and unless we are willing to talk about it and address it, because i will say this emphatically, and this is like farmer a and farmer b, it's simple. if i'm running at 10 miles an hour and there's somebody ahead of me running at 10 miles an hour, i can guarantee you i will never catch 'em. now, i'm not asking you to slow

the guy down running at 10, just help me run faster. >> lyndon baines johnson. >> right. and so when i look at a society that says that sandra day o'connor said on the question of should you have set asides for an african-american who want a contract in denver to install guardrails, say there is no compelling federal interest to do that. i will make a case at some point if you take the growth of the hispanic population and you take the growth of the african american population, there will be a compelling federal interest to answer the question how long can we as a nation exist when minority unemployment is double that of white unemployment? it's been that way throughout my entire life. and i have been extremely successful in business. but i recognize that the problem

inherent in black america is not lack of commitment to care for ourselves, not work ethic, not integrity, not transparency, not a desire to live in a two-participant be household -- two-parent household. none of that. it's endemic and built in our dna. but i will tell you what is built in the dna of america is a history, chronic history of institutionalized discrimination and race discrimination. >> no doubt. [applause] >> and unless we resolve that, we will be here when congressman west is a senator from florida. having this -- >> what about president? [laughter] [applause] >> having this, having this same debate on the issue of race. but i do -- you know, i don't want to -- >> ashley, a quick retort because i want to get everybody else in too. >> well, i respect you're definitely an american success story. >> without any set aside. born in mississippi. go ahead.

>> exactly, exactly. >> [inaudible] >> okay. >> okay. but, you know -- >> [inaudible] >> but the government didn't invest in you. >> [inaudible] >> i say the government ought to create a tax system to cause the private sector to invest. the government does that all along. there are research grants. >> right. >> and there are programs for capital appreciation taxes. there are all kinds of, you know, investment in all kinds of things that the government does. what i'm advocating is the government uses tax policy as mr. laffer knows. you can use tax policy to have tremendously different outcomes. >> absolutely. >> and all i'm saying is government should use tax policies to impact the african-american community. the question is, is it fair to white americans who feel that they should not be discriminated against because they didn't

do -- >> absolutely. >> -- anything to cause the problem. >> one second, let me -- >> no white is ever made better off by pulling a black down. >> no, no -- >> and we want prosperity amongst the black community period. >> everybody wants prosperity for others except when you say can i take an extra ten bucks out of your paycheck. all right, listen. dj jordan, you're on the small business committee, let's talk about that a little bit, the inherent hurdles for a black business versus a white business. what are they and how pronounced are they? >> well, the issues for small businesses are pretty much the same no matter what color your owner is across the nation. a lot of them are having access to capital issues like mr. johnson said, a lot of them are having issues with tax. but one of the biggest issues we are seeing is uncertainty about future federal policies that will impact their businesses. >> this is for all businesses. >> this is all businesses.

so you're seeing them held back. but for black businesses specifically i think the reason you're seeing less small businesses is the education component first and foremost. how do i start a business? where do i go for access to capital? what's an angel investor? where can i go to get venture capitalist investment? those are some of the the issues. and we're beating up on sba today, but i have to give props for sba for one of their main focuses, and that's entrepreneurial development. they offer free advice in their partnerships with small business development organizations and score centers -- >> right. >> which stands for service, corps of retired executives. and there are private partnerships all over the nation that a lot of black entrepreneurs have no clue about it. i'll give national urban league props as well because they're working to be able to provide free education to anyone who wants to start a business. >> dj, what about in the house? it seems like we start with

adults. congressman west talked about his father and what he taught him. the richest man in the world, carlos slim, came from lebanon, his camly came from -- family came from lebanon to mexico. his father would give them an allowance, he made them keep a journal of how he spent this money. this is the richest man in the world today, an immigrant to another country -- not ours -- but he started at a very, very young age. so i'm wondering has something gone wrong within the government? we talk about education, but it feels like, you know, the 21-year-old who's never had real interest in this, it's hard to kindle -- at what age can we push this down to really make it almost second nature? >> well, first of all, the first place it needs to start is the home, and that's already been said before. >> that's been said. >> basic financial literacy and principles -- >> but if your mom and pop don't know about it, you know, we're talking about policy here, government intervention. >> right. >> at what point should they

say, okay, we want the school systems -- >> well, i'll say this, the biggest civil rights issue we have right now is education in the inner city. and the fact that children, middle schoolers high schoolers are not getting the same education as they are in the urban areas. one of the proposals that are out there in the house are voucher programs so that low income parents, a single mother can take their child out of the school that they're in and put them in a charter school or a private school, things like that. that offers a lot of opportunity to a lot of especially single mothers who there may be a father that's not engaged, and they basically don't have the same access to the education as the white suburban child would. >> thank you. congressman west? >> you know, i taught high school for a year after i retired from the military, and that was such an enjoyable experience. i volunteered to go back to afghanistan. [laughter]

this is one of the things i've always been an advocate of. you know, public/private partnerships. you know, we need to get the private sector, we need to get local businesses to come up and talk the practical application of the theory being taught in these schools. i think it would be great if you've got cpas that would come in and teach math classes, things of that nature. people such as plumbers need to come in and start teaching kids about geometry and things like that. if a kid is doing well in that class, they can get an internship, an apprenticeship. instead of going and hanging out, now they can go in and see how they can apply those skills, and now you're incentivizing them to go back and work each harder in class because possibly when they graduate high school if they don't go off to college, they may be able to get that job with that private sector or that local small business who came in and gave someone their time to that school. and what we ought to do at the

federal government level then, we need to be able to track that and provide some sort of tax incentive for those people who want to volunteer in schools and teach that practical application. so i think that's an important thing, start proposing the public/private partnership. we used to have wood shop, automotive, all of these things that taught kids how to do stuff with their hands. and for whatever reason we stopped doing that, you know? you've got to be a pretty smart guy to be on a pit crew for nascar. >> on top of that, sir, you can't outsource those jobs either. i want to bring kay in, kay alford, because you guys are doing things internationally. i know that's really big on, high on your agenda. do you think that we need to, the policies we're talking about here, using the tax code to effect some sort of change, maybe we could even think bigger and larger outside of this box?

>> yeah. i think that, um doors that would have closed to us here in the united states are open around the world, and in july we're bringing a delegation of 100 from botswana to talk to our businesses so we can see where joint ventures, where mutual interests can coincide. and then in november we're having our pan-african entrepreneurs' conference, and people are coming from all over the world to see what contracts we may have, what contracts they may have where we can work together. >> where are these conferences going to be? [laughter] >> they're going to be in atlanta in july 19th 21 and in november in houston, 19-21. >> if i may, mr. payne -- >> sure. >> there's a pattern among our larger members, $500 million and above. that pattern is solid family roots, multigenerational, well educated. and two of our larger contractors, construction

managers, xj russ l and sherman smoot together are building the new museum in this city, $550 million project for the smithsonian. two black construction managers are building and that three black architects. [applause] >> and mr. alford brought up a great point. he said one of the trends is multigenerational which when you talk about tax policy, when you look about what we're about to do with death taxes, drop the might minimum exemption from five million down to one million, once again, that's the federal government not incentivizing growth through multigenerations. i mean, we're doing the things that are counterproductive to one of the important trends that you see, so that's why we've got to go back to the drawing board up here. >> guys, i want to ask, and i'll just kind of throw this out generally. from a business perspective the empire state which is one of the

federal reserve niches in this country, they do a survey every now and then and talk to businesses about problems they have. i respect robert johnson for so many things, but some of the things he said today kind of go against what this survey said. there's a gigantic spike in some of the problems with black employment and maybe, perhaps, stopping black entrepreneurship that i think are solvable. and it's not, by the way, just black. but punctuality is a gigantic problem for businesses. interpersonal skills was a gigantic problem for these businesses. and only advanced computer skills outranked them as being problems when it comes to hiring. so we've talked about education and things like this, but what about the idea of just getting people accustomed to going to work in general, you know, what kind of policies can be put into place that just sort of promote basic work skills and then entrepreneurship after that? anyone have any ideas on that? art? >> rosy greer and i did a lot of

work together in california, and rosie took these little classes and just how to put your pants on correctly, how to wash your hands, the speech patterns. it really was important for the kids that came out of rosie greer's group, they really worked effectively, just how to interface with the public. that's where that works really well, charles. >> congressman west, one of the things that propelled you to the national stage was your, is your personality. in other words -- >> oh, really? >> yeah, yeah. [laughter] you preach a certain kind of accountability. and what kind of role does government have with respect to -- how can government instill accountability into individuals? >> well, i think that first and foremost when you look at the culture in the united states of america, we don't talk about personal responsibility and accountability. everything is somebody else's fault. one of the things i have a problem with down in south florida, there used to be a billboard called who can i

sue.com. [laughter] so, you know, growing up in the military and, of course, having a father who served in the military and a mother who worked for a marine headquarters for 25 years, you know, there were certain things that were expected of you. it was about respect. it was about integrity. it was about character. and i always define character as doing what is right when no one is watching. and so i think those are some of the basic standards. your oral and written communicative skills are important, the means by which you carry yourself as far as your grooming and your appearance. i think those are some of the basic cultural things that we see going away in the country. one of the worst whippings i ever received from my dad was when we were down in cuthbert, georgia, which was his hometown, and the old folks had called back to them and told them that his son was walking through cuthbert, georgia, and not saying good afternoon, yes, sir, yes, ma'am, to people who were sitting on the por. when you see your elders, you respect them, you talk to them,

you know? you give them due deference. that's not what we have, and i think those little, small things. and i will tell you this, having served 22 years in the military, when you get some of these young kids that think they're tough and everything like that, in about two or tree years you have a completely different young man or young woman. and those are some of the basic things -- this is a culture thing, you know? throughout this entire country. i don't want the federal government to try to solve it. i mean, you've got this problem in new york where the guy doesn't like big gulp drinks. i don't think that's their role. [laughter] >> he wants to stop obesity. >> yeah. [applause] >> i mean, you want to stop obesity, come see me at 5:30 in the morning, let's go for a run. [laughter] but once again, it comes back to a basic foundational structure that we once had in this country. and i think that when we, when we break down that family structure, we get away from a lot of things that are causing

us, as some people say, the unintended consequences that eventually do end up b -- up with, you know, double-digit unemployment. because there's just a lack of discipline. >> i want to go back to -- >> can i just add -- >> sure, absolutely. >> it would be great for our young people to have more exposure to african-american entrepreneurs. so for those that are running businesses for our business members that are on the black enterprise list, it would be great to go to some of these inner city schools and say, hey, come to my office, let me show you how i conduct a meeting, how our accounting department works, let me show you how to create a marketing plan so that they get that exposure. i think a lot of it when we talk about the young people if in their household they don't have a entrepreneur, they've never been exposed to that, how do you expect them to get that on their own? so we have a fundamental responsibility as leaders and as, you know, individuals and as

professionals -- >> we're roll models. >> exactly. we are role models, and we have a fundamental responsibility to expose them to the things. we can't just sit back and say, oh, these kids don't know how to act. well, if we know how to act, it takes a village. so we need to show them how to act. >> there is a federal law on the books, and congressman west, if congress would just enforce it, it's called section 3 of the hud act. >> yes. >> it was introduced by hud secretary george romney, 1968, as a result of the first watts riot. it was further invigorated by hud secretary jack kemp in 1992 after the rodney king riot. now, i'm wondering if l.a.'s going to have to burn one more time before we can start enforcing section 3 of the hud act which says if you're using hud money on any project, 10% of the contract should be set aside by a section 3 business.

what is a section 3 business? section 3 residents are people living in public housing, section 8 are under the poverty level. 30% of those new jobs are supposed to go to section 3 residences by way of section 3 businesses. now, the chicago housing authority for the last three years had complied, that $1.4 billion they received, $140 million would have gone to section 3 businesses. garbage pickup, construction, daycare centers, land scaping, patchwork on the drywalls and painting. >> right. >> hiring those residences. that's 130, $140 million and and ,000 new jobs -- 13,000 new jobs of people living in public housing. there's not one d city in this country in compliance with

section 3 of the hud act. secretary of hud today -- >> right. >> he ran new york's public housing. he didn't comply with it. so when -- and congresswoman velazquez has taken, she tackled this about three or four years ago. didn't go anywhere. but if we just influence it. and as the hud secretary would say, comply, florida, or you're not going to get any more money. jacksonville was found in noncompliance in 1993. it's 201, they still aren't in compliance. the secretary threatened, him, but he didn't do it. >> okay. that's -- taking a lot of notes on that. i want to go back, no, that's, listen, the money's set aside, and it's being hijacked, we've got to figure it out. i want to go back to ruth jones in part because my mother's name -- oh, i'm sorry, did you want to comment on that real quick? okay, ashley. >> the day we're talked about

educating our children, the day is pretty much gone for you to be able to drop your child off at the school and just pick them up and expect them to get a real education. that day is gone. schools are cutting back on all the extras. there's barely enough time in the day to get math, reading and region arts, just enough time to do that. we as black leaders have an additional responsibility outside of our elected office, it extends outside of the schools to mentor and raise up this next generation. >> absolutely. >> in my hometown i have a group called generation inspiration. we take 'em all. we go through the steps on building life skills, showing them what a businessman looks like, showing them how to balance a checkbook, how to be proper, respectful and to speak articulately, but that is an additional side of what our responsibility is if we call ourselves quote-unquote black leaders. >> absolutely. >> ruth jones, i was going to

say my mother's name is ruth, but the main reason i'm coming back to you is because we talked about some of the more depressing statistics, and, you know, you're city manager at riviera beach, 70% african-american, huge poverty, yet there are some thriving black businesses there. how are they doing and how are they surviving, what are the lessons to be learned? >> the black businesses in riviera beach that are thriving is, first of all, because they have been able to get the community to back them. the residents buy from them. the businesses in riviera beach buy from each other. and once you begin to start that kind of synergy, then you can give support for the businesses that are in existence and help them establish spin off businesses. we're developing our marina, and one of the things that we determined as a government is that when it comes to putting

new businesses on the boardwalk and the promenade, we're not going to go out and look for businesses that are nationwide that you've got to have a certain income for them to come. we're going the get local businesses, they're going to be the businesses along our boardwalk. we're not going to get anything new. we're going to get those that are home grown, and we are going to be the ones to help them expand so now they can get the third or fourth place. they're going to hire people, and my people are going to get back to work. >> thank you. >> can i make a point too? >> absolutely. [applause] >> i just want to make the point that you can do so much more at the local level than you can at the federal level. i think a lot of businesses look to the federal government to be their answer, and we can hardly pass a budget. the senate hasn't passed a budget in three years, i had to throw that in there. but look to your local level. if you're a small business, especially a minority small

business, make sure that you know that your county commissioners, your mayors, your state rep. because they can get a whole lot done faster than we can in washington, d.c.. >> absolutely. >> and before i throw it out to the audience, panel, real quick, we've got a few minutes, anyone with some more specific solution ideas? both of those things are fantastic. >> i think we can also leverage crowd funding -- >> what kind of funding? >> crowd funding. >> okay. >> which basically says that you can pool your money together to invest in various business enterprises. so your venture is kick starter or microplace, these are new ways as a results of the jobs act of 2012 that was signed just a couple months ago that people are getting creative about leveraging the dollars they do have. it doesn't have to be lots and lots of money, but if you pool grassroots funding together, you can leverage that. so i think getting really creative about the financing options, also leveraging on private equity so the national

association of investment companies leveraging the resources that we have to really be creative about getting access to capital flow. >> right. >> one of the things that is hurting us in the state of florida is, like, our insurance reform that we need to take to tackle in the state of florida. for instance, florida's one of the few states who's got the personal injury protection where on the average our floridians, specifically our minority communities, are paying an exorbitant amount of money on personal injury protection. and sometimes when i go around the state and try to articulate that with some of our minority communities, you know, they don't see it, see that as a major issue. but one of the things that i'm trying to do is eliminate this personal injury protection and just change it so in that way what i want to do is just do a mandatory bodily injury for the state of florida where it would

save the automobile policyholders over $400 a year. and, you know, so this is something that's really important, but when you talk about insurance reform in the minority communities, people don't see that as a major issue. we have to articulate these issues as just as important because, you know, if you can save $400 per household, a major issue for some of these commitments. >> absolutely. and if it's not important enough to you to shout about it, no one else is going to listen. yeah, absolutely. >> one more policy idea. right now federal contracting is a great potential for minority businesses. right now -- the federal government's supposed to do at least 23% of all government contracting right now is supposed to go to small businesses. they have not met that goal in five years? seven years. seven years. they have not even met the 23% goal because there basically is no incentive for the procurement staff at the federal agencies to

meet that goal. our committee -- >> it started dropping in 1996. go ahead. >> so that's one untapped potential there. our committee has passed legislation to increase the goal to 25% and also to attach an incentive for that to make it part of an employee review when procurement official goes in for his yearly review, they look whether or not you met that goal. so we have legislation, it's passed the house, it was attached to the ndaa, and it's sitting in the senate. so if you agree with that, call your senators. >> please. all right, guys, the panel's been fantastic, but go ahead, harry. >> there's one nasty thing out there, congressman west, by procurement agents. and it's called cancellation for the convenience of the government which means you win a contract fair and square competitively, beat lockheed, got the contract, go in on time, and they cancel it for for the

convenience of government. you have no recourse. and i've got a guy down in hampton, virginia, he had a $1.5 million in invoices they won't honor for the work he's done. i've got a black female, san diego airport, she won the first general contract in the history of the airport, and they canceled it on convenience. she happens to be business of the year sba 2012, and then it had another contract which she won competitively, canceled for convenience of the government. it's jim you. and they told me, you don't want to do this. we're going to make it rough on you. and they haven't -- one other black general contractor ever. >> very simply charles talked about my charming personality. please, let me know about that because i'll be writing a letter to someone. >> yes, sir. >> all right. >> thank you. okay. i think we have a stick mic,

pass it around. say your name. >> let me hide over here by mr. payne. re tissue shah west is any name, so thank you, colonel west, for having this second conservative black forbe rum. my question is for colonel west. what is our plan to recute and to educate -- recruit and to educate the black community to come over to the other side? because 95% pretty much of us vote democrat, although there's plenty of versatility in the white race. some of them are independents, some are republicans, some are democrats. why is it that we stick to one party that i think is no good for us? thank you. >> well, i think do -- [applause] i think that the most important thing i can do at an event such as this is to provide a forum so when you think about the millions of people that are watching this on c-span, and

it'll get rebroadcast. we've got to get people to think. my wife is a financial planner and investor. no one here, i guarantee you, puts all of your capital, all of your funds into one single mutual fund or stock or account. you don't. you diversify. as mr. johnson said early on, i think it's so important that the black community does the exact same thing with their political capital and not just put it into one political found. you get taken for granted by one, and to the other you become irrelevance. so at least we're having this conversation to get people to talk about and to think about, as i said, conservative principles as it relates to revitalization. individual industrialism. limited government that's fiscally responsible. the free market and also education that leads to equality of opportunity. that's what today was really about and, you know, i got some

great notes, some great things we can start looking at, and i can take that over, send messages to the ways in means committee. we will definitely with getting with housing and urban development and some of these other things. we have things in the pipeline as far as contracting opportunities protection, that'll be coming up for a vote on the house floor, and i'm glad to be the original upon so sponsor of that legislation. >> i'd like to chime in on congressman west. it's also encouraging more black republicans. you think that, you know, i didn't know any really before i became one. [laughter] but that's just the reality. and my wife and i decided to switch parties and leave the democratic party and become republicans. and one of the first people that called my office to congratulate me was congressman west. i didn't really know who he was. but because he called and reached out to me, and it was encouraging. you know?

stay the course, it's going to get rough for you. but still to your principles, can and you'll do just fin. we need more running for office. there needs to be a choice in the black community. >> right. >> if you have no choice, then you can't be independent. so we need an independent voting electorate that is giving both parties a republican and democratic option, and we knead to run more african americas. >> we do have members of both parties, and we feel that both parties should work together to protect interests and values. >> they're known as the obama chamber of commerce. i don't see where the -- >> oh, wait, wait, wait. hold it now. let's not go there. >> doggone, i've got to call that out. >> but we're sitting here at the forum, so we have relationships -- that that's congressman west. he calls me, i come. >> right.

both sides. >> african-american environmentalist association, question for congressman west. blacks do not own any of the energy infrastructure and resources in the united states. as energy bills come up before the congress, what do you think the congress can do to help get some sort of ownership of energy, infrastructure and resources in this country? >> well, i think, you know, once again we have to promote black businesses investing in energy companies. and, you know, the all spectrum. look what the -- look at what's going on in northern minnesota. we should have minority businesses that would be part of the growth of the keystone xl pipeline. i'm sure you could have direct and order small businesses affected by that mull by 5,000 high thyme. i think it's about educating

people and having, you know, the ability to get the capital so that you can invest and get into all of these different sectors. look, the way that the country is going with science, technology, engineering and manufacturing. i think that when you look at the transportation of dollars of capital sitting offshore from the united states of america, we should allow that capital to be repatriated in this country, and i think that small requirement businesses, black of owned businesses should be able to, you know, through venture capitalism and private equity get an opportunity to get into some of these technology l fields as well. but you're right, we've got to talk about the opportunities that are out there. you know, what is amazing to me is there ain't no problem in the black community when it comes to sports guys, when you talk about singing and dancing and all this stuff. so why are we not in the energy sector, you know? why don't we have more people in the defense contractors side.

when you think about all of the, you know, him from generals that are retiring, we should have more black owned hiss. >> i've seen growth, and you have dan packer, he's getting into the business as an entrepreneur. you've got sherman lewis, oil district company in houston -- distribution company in houston. you've got this nigerian brother in if houston who does something like a billion dollars in shipping and what have you. so -- exxon and chevron. exxon, you go to a meeting at exxon, you'll find some of the sharpest black brains walking the earth and, hopefully, as they retire they will get cha weapon is neural bug -- entrepreneurial bug. they hired shell and all of them, and we need to get them to the weapon is neural side.

>> that's sort of the -- >> reachback. >> and in baseball it would be the farm system and, you know, hope any we're head anything the -- that's a fantastic question considering how many billions of our dollars are going boo that air. yes, sir. >> thank you very much. alfonso porter with examiner.com. like the congressman, i used to be a teacher and high school principal, but i didn't know going to afghanistan was an option for me. [laughter] >> it was for me. >> listen, i think it all starts and ends with education, and i think that we've talked a lot about that. the basics is that our kids are last in every standard or measure academically. you look at the s.a.t. data, you look at national analysis of standardized tests, you're going to find african-american children at the bottom. and in many cases they display an oppositional attitude towards learning where, essentially,

dumbing down has become equivalent to keeping it real. and so my question then is for the leak leadership, how do you a attack mix development giving the reality that our school somethings are performing so poorly. how do you attract large scale employers to get rid of that 40% unemployment rate? how do you bring people in? in because when people are looking to establish a front or argument, they want to know, essentially, how are the schools? even when you're making the purchase of a home, your question first becomes how are the schools? how do you answer that question when you're trying to effectively get economic possibilities in your jurisdiction? >> riviera beach is fortunate to have the second-ranking baccalaureate high school program in its city limit.

sun coast high school. so when i start talking to businesses, i talk about sun coast high school. i talk about mayor mcleod bethune middle school that is a feeder to sun coast as well as jf kennedy middle school. a feeder to this number two-ranked international baccalaureate program in the country. so i began to talk about the education within the city. now, mind you, just like i have that high-ranking baccalaureate institution, i still have an unemployment rate. unfortunately, because some of our children are not being admitted into the sun coast. when we want to talk about administration, we've got to talk about all these programs. but when you can show them you have a training facility

available, when you can show them that we have individuals that have already completed our urban league program, have already completed our in-house city program, have completed the program with work force alliance, we have an educated work force out here for whatever level of position you're looking for. but you've got to be able to show them you've got the capabilities. >> and i think what was a little different, it's more of a rural area, but with problem is we have great schools. the problem is when they leave, they just don't come back. the issue is how can we get them to come back 1234 and what we tried to track with os that are nonprofits, what are they going to do, helping them know before these are the jobs that you can come home to. these are the jobs, and i think this is a critical point.

some of my kids too many times we see coaches from division i schools look at our best athletes but not our best minds. i've got to give florida a and h credit, i told him we've got some of the best kids in this country at a time. he came to my high school and ended out $200,000 of scholarships to our best and brightest. and i said, you know what? you can yet the same attention any athlete with can get. that sort of imagery is saying, you know, if we're smart, they'll come find us. you can come back and rook at one of our local companies who know who you are now. you've got to get them to come back home because they're smart enough to leave, but are they encouraged enough to come back? >> are we sticking our heads in the -- >> you can watch the rest of this conversation online at the c-span video library. taking you live now to the u.s. senate where we expect remarks from majority leader harry reid.

and at 5:00 eastern time, senators will debate the nomination of mary lewis to be a district court judge in south carolina. a vote on her nomination scheduled at 5:30. live coverage of the senate here on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, in your faithfulness, guide our senators today. as they trust your leadership, may they experience

your faithful love. lead them from the path of disunity, as you teach them your will. as they experience the constancy of your presence, guide them to your higher wisdom and fill their hearts with your peace. watch over them with your gracious protection. we pray in your strong name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty

and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., june 18, 2012. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable richard blumenthal a senator from the state of connecticut, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i now move we proceed to calendar numbered 250, s. 1940. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar numbered 250, s. 1940, a bill to amend the national flood insurance act of 1968, and so forth and for other purposes. mr. reid: mr. president, the senate will continue debate on the farm bill today.

at 5:00, we will proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of mary lewis to be united states district judge for the district of south carolina. at 5:30 this evening, there will be a roll call vote on confirmation of the lewis nomination. i have spoken to senator stabenow several times in the last couple of days. in fact, we got back today at about 2:00 and she indicated to me they have made progress on the bill. there was one amendment she was concerned about. i told her we could have that as part of the consent agreement. so i have worked very hard to try to make life for senators stabenow and roberts easier and work through some of the problems that my people had. but, mr. president, the issues on this bill overwhelmingly are on the other side, and i hope

that we can work something out. they have worked so hard, stabenow and roberts, and i hope we can find a path forward. it's important. i commend them for their dedication to this measure. it shuts subsidies and protects 16 million american jobs. we have spent so much precious time on this bill, precious time that we don't have. we need to move forward on it. we're going to move forward or off this bill. i hope we will be able to move forward today with this. otherwise, we're going to have to file cloture on the bill as we have had too much -- this is the third week of jockeying around on this bill. mr. president, astrid silva is an average american 24-year-old, for all outward appearances. she is a las vegas resident. she is fascinated with nevada history, whether it's area 51 or the time when it's alleged the

mob ran the casinos. she is active in the community, school politics and local politics. one day, astrid would like to come to washington, d.c., to see, as she said, the declaration of independence, see it herself. she recently completed her social degree at the college of southern nevada. she dreams of completing her bachelor's degree at unlv. but there is one thing standing in her way. astrid is not an american citizen. 20 years ago this week, this little girl, 3 and a half years old, a little baby girl, was brought to the united states by her parents. she has no knowledge of mexico. america is her country. the country where she was born, mexico, she knows nothing about

it. she speaks perfect english. she was an honor student in high school. she has never called anyplace but nevada her home. so of course i thought of this brave young woman, who president obama announced last friday would suspend deportation of young people like astrid who were brought to this country illegally when they were only children. mr. president, i had a difficult campaign, as everyone knows, and during that campaign, on occasion, i would be given a little handwritten note. i would look at it later. that was from astrid. telling me of her dreams, her dreams that she wanted to be fulfilled, and she couldn't because she was not a citizen, even though this was her country. she has been looking over her shoulder for many years now, since the time she was old enough to understand, afraid of

deportation, and she decided she was going to step out of the shadows and be no longer afraid and become an advocate for the dream act. she was truly a dreamer. as we know, the dream act would create a pathway to citizenship for outstanding young people who were brought to this country through no fault of their own who want to attend college or serve our nation in the armed services. the dream act is not amnesty. it rewards responsibility and opportunity. astrid's handwritten letters convinced me years ago of the importance of this issue. unfortunately, republican opposition stalled this legislation. i was stunned listening to the republican nominee for president say why doesn't congress do this? mr. president, we have tried. we can't get republican votes. we have tried.

thanks to president obama, astrid and 800,000 other young people just like her who are american all but paperwork no longer need to live in fear of deportation. president obama's order to suspend deportation of the people comes after a year-long review. it removes the specter of deportation that has hovered over deserving young men and women. mr. president, the presiding officer was for a long, long time the chief attorney, the chief enforcer of the law in the state of connecticut.

and you had to direct yr resources to where they could best be used. you wanted to focus on people who were threatening public safety and national security. what good would it do for us as a country to have people like astrid, you can't go to school, but you can become part of a gang. women become gang members, too. some of the most violent gang members we have in america today are women now. are we better off having these young men and women, prevent them from going to school, prevent them from going into the military, even though this is the only country they have ever known as home? are we better off saying stay in the shadows, or are we better off letting them get an education that -- and serve our

country in the military? the answer is so easy. to remove the aspect of deportation that is hovering over young men and women. that's what president obama did. so i congratulate him for this greatest decision, a decision that benefits both the dreamers and our nation as a whole. like astrid, these young people share our language, share our culture, share our love for america, the only country they know. they are talented, patriotic men and women who want to defend our nation in the military, get a college education, work hard, contribute to their communities in this country. when they pledge allegiance, it's the united states of america. unfortunately, president obama's directive is temporary. the onus is now on congress to protect the dreamers and fix our broken immigration system once and for all. for all these people who are saying why didn't he do it in congress, we tried. we invite them here. if they want to make it permanent, it could be done very

easily. comprehensive immigration reform should be tough, fair and practical. we should continue to secure our borders, require 11 million undocumented people to pay taxes, fine, learn english. then they don't go to the front of the line. they go to the back of the line and work their way up. some republicans have suggested a solution to the dreamers' terrible dilemma is from congress, not president, as i have talked about here today already. i repeat, mr. president. it's republican opposition that has prevented congress from acting. in fact, senate democrats blocked the dream act twice. many republicans who once said they favor a long-term fix for america's broken immigration system are now banning efforts to find common ground. and it was interesting to note

the former governor of massachusetts on one of the sunday shows yesterday refused to answer the question being asked four times by bob bob schaffer. what's your proposal? he couldn't answer it four times. we all know he said if the dream act passed, he would veto it. essaying why don't you work it out in congress? but essaying if you do, i'm going to veto it. so obviously, efforts to find common ground have been abandoned. so the president took decisive action in offering this directive, but he can only do so much by himself. so for astrid's sake and the sake of every american, it's time for congress to become part of the solution. i hope my republican colleagues will finally join democrats to find a bipartisan way to mend this nation's flawed immigration system instead of just complaining about the system being broken. the pathway is there. we know what needs to be done. we just need a little help from our republican colleagues.

would the chair announce the business of the day? the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order -- thank you. mr. reid: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. kyl: i ask that further proceedings under the quorum calling dispensed with. fer if without objection. mr. kyl: thank you. i want to respond today to some statements that president obama has been making on the campaign trail regarding debt, spending, and taxes during his administration. last week the president said that he shouldn't be blamed for massive debt and spending in recent years because, in his words, it was all "baked into the cake" when he took office. he also contended that his administration has done the responsible thing in taking steps to fix our nation's fiscal problems. here's the totality of what the president said. quote -- "i love it when these guys talk about debt and

deficits. i inherited a $1 trillion-dollar deficit. we signed $2 trillion of spending cuts in law. spending you understand my administration has grown more slowly than under any president in the last 60 years. they baked all this stuff into the cake with the ward and the tax cuts." i'd like to respond to each of these things. president obama is not the reformer he makes himself out to be. since he took office -- since he took office, the national debt has climbed by $5 trillion. it's now larger than the entire economy. if you take his entire four years and all of the presidents before him, he has incurred as much debt as all of the presidents from george washington through george w. bush, just in his time as president. yearly deficits, which is the

gap between revenues and spending, has grown substantially, despite a promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, the president has run annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion for four years in a row. none of this has been anything to do with what happened before he became president. so how about after he became president? according to the president's own budget numbers, in 2009, the first year of his presidency, the deficit was $1.4 trillion. in 2010, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. in 2011, again it was $1.3 trillion. and if the president's policies are followed, the deficit in this year is expected to top $1.3 trillion. those are all in the years when he was president. the highest deficit under president bush, his predecessor, $458 billion. that was in 2008.

every deficit under president obama has been more than double that figure. but president obama says he's blameless when it comes to the debt problem. not hardly. he's never even submitted a plan that comes close to balancing the budget, even with the massive tax hike that he exportst supports. as "washington post" columnist david mill bank wrote last week, "despite the president's claim that both parties have laid out their policies on the table, president obama has made no serious proposal to fix the runaway entitlement programs that threaten to swamp the government's finances." end of quote. and dana milbank is not a conservative or republican. let's like at the president's claims that spending has grown more slowly than during any presidency in the last 60 years. that claim does not pass the smell test. the former director of the national economic council is one of many observers who has debu

debunked this claim. first, as hennessy notes, the presidenpresident's claim is baa discredited article that he isn't accountable for anything that happened before october 1, 2009. that's the start of the fiscal year, but of course he took office almost nine months before that time. in other words, that timetable excludes the auto bailouts, the first year of the stimulus bill which, of course, was president obama's legislation, the bailouts of fannie mae and freddie mac and a lot of other things. as hennessey writes, this date was cherry picked to make president obama's record look good. and i would just ask does president obama also disclaim anything to do with bailing out the auto companies, for example, that occurred in that period of time? no, last time i checked he was bragging about that. that's the height of cherry picking. things that make you look good, you take, the things that don't, you reject. you can't have it both ways. second, the president actually

proposed spending far higher than what was enacted into law. for example, his latest budget request proposed spending of $3.72 trillion in fiscal year 2013 but the president's taking credit for spending in the c.b.o. baseline which is $3.58 trillion which is some what less than the $3.72 trillion that he proposed. so the president wanted to spend more but was restrained by the republicans in the house of representatives. in congress. mr. president, hennessey also explains how the president's spending claim collapses once you take three basic errors into account. he writes and he -- quote -- "if you instead do this calculation the right way and measure the annual growth rate from 2008 to c.b.o. scoring of the budget proposal for 2013, you get an average annual growth rate of federal spending of 4.5%. that's a nominal growth rate so the real growth rate will be a

within in the twos earned, end of his quotation. it's inaccurate to measure the record without looking at the size and scope of government. president obama's preference for big government is obvious. he usually argues for it. he doesn't argue he's for smaller, less active government. the historical average of spending to gross domestic product before president obama took office was roughly 20.6%. so how does president obama's record stack up? here's the breakdown of spending to gross domestic product. these are the ratios during the obama years. remember now, this is compared to the historical average of 20.6%. well, 2009, his first year, 25.2%. next, 2010, 24.1%. 2011, 24.1% again. an estimated this year, 2012,

24.3%. all of them substantially higher than the historical average of spending of 20%. so his spending every year that he's been in office including the projected spending for this year will be far greater than the historical average. in the president's budget request for fiscal year 2013 which would be next year, the spending averages 22.5%, still above the 20% historically. so it's no wonder that president obama doesn't want to run on his real spending record because it's not one of fiscal constraint. third, i want to address the president's claim that the tax relief that congress enacted in 2001 and 2003 somehow plaidz played an outsized role in driving up the debt. you've heard him talk about this. if it weren't for the bush tax cuts, he said, we'd be closer to having a balanced budget. just not true. the reference for this, the

nonpartisan referees at the congressional budget office. these are not partisan people, not on one side or the other. and they have shown that what we have is a spending problem. not a revenue problem. in may of 2011, c.b.o. released an analysis showing that nearly 50% of the cumulative budget deficit since 2001 is due to increased government spending. 28% of it is due to economic and technical corrections, 11% is due to temporary surplus like tax provisions. the 2001 and 2003 tax relief to which president obama refers, which, by the way, is the same tax relief he extended for two years, about a year and a half ago, that accounts for how much? just 14% of the deficit since 2001 and 2003. so far from being the cause of the deficit, it only accounts

for 14% of the deficit. it's inaccurate for the president to place the blame for his spending record on broad-based pro-growth tax leave that has helped to create jobs and economic growth in this country prior to the last downturn, and that he himself supported extending. additionally, the recently released long-term budget outlook estimates that tax revenues will exceed the historical average in the next ten years if these same tax policies, the 2001 and 2003 tax relief is extended and if congress prevents the alternative minimum tax from hitting millions of middle-class families. that's what republicans have been supporting all along. we'll get back to the historical average of revenues raised. we all know that robust economic growth is the most effective way to reduce our debt, and that

raising taxes will not achieve that goal. failure to stop this tax-driven fiscal cliff could push us into another recession next year, again, according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office. it would result in a $4.59 trillion tax hike on individuals, families, businesses, and investors over the next decade. we've said that's the largest tax tax increase in the history of the country, over $4.5 trillion. if we are serious about increasing tax revenues through economic growth, avoiding a recession is a good place to start. mr. president, republicans are happy to debate president obama on the best way to create jobs and to get our country back on sound fiscal footing. but in order to do so, we need to get the facts straight first. president obama has not lived up to his promise to cut the deficit. he has not reduced spending in any meaningful way and tax relief is not the main reason why we were in the red -- why we are in the red today.

mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: mr. johnson:

mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. johnson: i move the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. johnson: mr. president, i rise today to talk about the critically important piece of legislation currently before the senate. the agricultural reform food and jobs act, but first i want to thank senators stabenow and roberts for their great work they have done to get us to this point in the reauthorization process. the bill as reported out of the ag committee saves taxpayers more than $23 billion over the next ten years and will support

millions of jobs. with this bill, we're taking several important steps in making our farm support system more responsive to actual need rather than sending payments to producers no matter what they grow. we are long past due in eliminating direct payments. at the same time, we're maintaining a strong crop insurance program and creating a new system that makes assistance available to producers when they actually experience loss. another important area of reform in this bill is implementations in ensuring that actual farmers receive payments. senators grassley and i have -- senator grassley and i have worked for years to lower the caps on farm payments and direct

payments to farmers. the new agricultural risk coverage program contains a cap of $50,000 and requires that program payment recipients contribute to the farm operation. current law has enabled multiple farm managers in their operation to qualify for farm program payments with as little participation as one conference call a year. not anymore under this bill. i'm disappointed that there have been amendments filed to weaken this language. i don't understand how anyone can stand before this body and just phi sending farm program payments to people who aren't engaged in agriculture. our country faces serious

physical challenges, and it seems to me that limiting farm payments to real farmers is a reasonable concept. i urge my colleagues to oppose efforts to weaken this language. with this bill, we are also taking important steps to combine and streamline our conservation programs while still allowing us to continue meeting the same water and wildlife goals. additionally, this bill contains a side saver provision that will discourage the breaking of needed sod for crop production. one area of the bill with which i am disappointed is that it does not contain a livestock title. however, i i have joined with se of my colleagues to file

amendments to give livestock producers a fair shake in the marketplace. along with senator grassley and others, i have worked for more than a decade to prohibit the ownership of livestock by the big meatpackers for more than 14 days prior to slaughter. additionally, i have joined with senator to require an amendment with forward contracts in the livestock markets. these are important provisions that i help my colleagues will support. i would also like to applaud the committee's work on the energy and rural development titles which strengthen our rural economies. the rural development water and waste water program has been a critical funding source to help alleviate a severe water

infrastructure need at the sioux indian reservation. i hope my collects will react favorably on senator brown's amendment that i have cosponsored to bolster this and other rural development programs. finally, i would like to commend efforts to address the pine beetle epidemic in the first title of this bill. the underlying bill does good work to increase flexibility and i support the efforts of senator mark udall and others to increase the resources we are providing to the forest service to address this threat to our forest health and public safety. mr. president, i understand that the ag committee leaders and the senate leadership have been making progress in their negotiations toward an agreement on a path forward. i hope we can avoid having a

small minority of senators hold up progress on this bill. it is time that we act and we give our producers certainty. mr. president, i yield the floor and i note an absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. mccain: mr. president, i

ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be suspend and i be recognized. the presiding officer: without objection, is noter from arizona is recognized. mr. mccain: mr. president, today i am pleased to be joined by senator reid of nevada -- our distinguished majority leader, to introduce the boxing act of 201. it is identical to a measure reported during the 111th congress, after being approved unanimously by the senate? 2005. simply put, this legislation would better protect professional boxing from the fraud, corruption, and ineffective regulation that has plagued the support for too many years. and that has devastated fiscally and financially many of our nation's professional boxers. my involvement with boxing goes back a long way, first as a fan

in my youth and what many view as the golden age of boxing in america, in the days of joe louis and billy kahn, sugar ray robinson, probably the greatest boxer in history, and kid gavilon, and the names i still remember because of the incredible acts of sportsmanship and courage and tenacity in the ring that they displayed, which made boxing a popular sport in the united states. my undistinguished record as a boxer at the united states neville academy and then here over my time here. the 19th century sports writer pierce egan called the sport of boxing a sweet science.

longtime boxing reporter jimmy cannon called it the red-light district of sports. in truth, it's both. i've always believed that at its best, professional boxing is a riveting and honorable contest of courageous and highly skilled athletes. unfortunately, the last few decades of boxing history has, through countless examples of conflicts of interest, improper financial arrangements, and inadequate or nonexistent oversight, led most to believe that cannon's words, that. booing is the red light district of sports, were more appropriate than that of pierce etha egan. the most recent controversy surrounded the paccio-bradley fighfight.

after the paccio-bradley decision was announced, understandably, fans were clearly apoplectic and many commentators found the decision astonishing. the promoter of the fight, the long -- and he represented both pacial and bradley said, "what the hell were these people watching? how can you watch a sport where you don't see any motive for any malfeasance and yet come up with a result like we came up with tonight? how do you explain it to anybody? something like this is so outlandish, it's a death deathnr the sport." those words fro word came from . don raphael who scored the fight 119-9 for p.m. pacial called the

fight "an absolute absurdity." and he said, "i could watch the fight 100 times and not find seven rounds to give to timothy bradley." following the fight, hbo's max kellerman said, "this is baffling. punch stat had pacial landing more punches, landing at a higher connect percentage, landing more power punches. ringside, virtually every reporter had pacial winning by a wide margin. i can't understand how bradley gets this decision. there are times in that fight where i felt a little embarrassed for bradley. clearly the conspiracy theories and speculations surrounding the fight are given light because there are so many questions surrounding the integrity of the fighof thefight.

it is the only sports in the united states that does not have a strong, centralized association league or other regulatory body to establish and enforce uniform rules and practices. because a powerful few benefit greatly from the current system of patchwork, compliance, and enforcement of federal boxing law, a national self-regulating organization throw prevail to government oversight is not a realistic option. what has happened to the meaning of the word "champion?" there is it's an alphabet soup of organizations today. some of them, or many of them based outside of the united states of america, who clearly manipulate the rankings in order to set up a fight which has a -- quote -- "championship" associated with it. ineffective oversight of professional boxing will continue to result in scandals,

controversies, unethical practices, a lack of trust in the integrity of judged outcomes, and most tragic ofual, unnecessary deaths in the sport. these problems have led many in professional boxing to conclude that the only solution is an effective and accountable federal boxing commission. legislation that senator reid and i are introducing would establish the united states boxing commission, the usbc to provide integrity within this profession through better reporting and disclosure, requiring that the sport avoid the conflict of interest which causes fans to question the outcome which utters the sport. if enacted, the commission would administer federal boxing land coordinate with other federal regulatory agencies to ensure that this law is enforced. oversee all professional boxing

matches in the united states, and work with the boxing industry and local commissions to improve the safety, integrity, and professionalism of professional boxing in the united states. more specifically, this legislation would require that all referees and judges participating in a championship or a professional bout lasting ten rounds or more be fully registered and licensed for the commission. further, while a sanctioning organization could provide a list of judges and referees deemed qualified, only the boxing commission will appoint the judges and referees participating in these matches. additionally, the commission would license boxers, promoteerings, managers, and sanctioning organizations. the commission would have the authority to revoke such a license for violations of federal boxing law to stop unethical or illegal conduct, to protect the health and safety of a boxer, or if the revocations

otherwise in the public interest. the professional boxing amendments act would strengthen existing federal boxing law by improving the basic health and safety standards for professional boxers. establishing a centralized medical registry to be used by local commissions to protect boxers, reducing the arbitrary practices of sanctioning organizations, and enhancing the uniformity and basic standards for professional boxing contracts. most importantly, this legislation would establish a federal regulatory entity to oversee professional boxing and set basic uniform standards for certain aspects of the sport. thankfully, current law that we passed in the 1990's has already improved some aspects of the state of professional boxing. however, like me, many others remain concerned the sport

continues to be at serious risk. in 2003, the government accountability office spent more than six months studying ten of the country's busiest state and tribal boxing commissions. auditors pound that many of these commissions do not comply with federal boxing law and that there is a disturbing lack of enforcement by both federal and state officials. it's important to state clearly and plainly for the record that the purpose of the commission created by this bill is not to interfere with the daily operations of state and tribal boxing commissions. instead, it would work in consultation with local commissions and it would only exercise its authority when grounds exist for such intervention. this bill states explicitly that it would not prohibit any boxing commission for exercising any of its powers, duties, or functions with respecfunctionswith respecn

or supervision of professional boxing to the extent not consistent with the provisions of federal boxing law. with respect to costs associated with this legislation, the price tag for this legislation should not fall on the shoulders of the american taxpayer, especially during a time of crushing debts and deficits. as such, 20 cover the costs, the bill authorizes the commission to assess fees on promoters, sanctioning organizations, and boxers ensuring that boxers pay the smallest portion of what is in fact collected. let there be no doubt, however, of the very basic and pressing need in professional boxing for a federal boxing commission. the establishment of the usbc would address that need. the problems that have plagued the sport of professional boxing for many years continue to undermine the credibility of the sport in the eyes of the public and more importantly compromise the safety of boxers. this bill provides an effective approach to curbing these

problems. mr. president, i take a back seat to no one in my desire for smaller government and less regulation. it is a -- there is a crying need today not only for the integrity of the sport but the health of boxers. we are finding more an more, especially in the sport of professional football lately, the effect of blows to the head. anyone who's had the honor of knowing mohammed h. lee, as i have over the years, recognizes this is a very, very brutal sport. and there's no doubt that if in professional football blows to the head can be damaging to one's health, clearly it can be in the sport of boxing. i regret to tell my colleagues that there is not sufficient protections for the safety of the boxers engaged in the sport today. the pacquiao-bradley fight is only the latest example and its

only outrage is spread because of the size of the fight. unfortunately, over the years there have been a series of fights, some of them i will add for the record at the appropriate time, where the wrong decision has been announced. this is a great sport. this is a great -- it's given an opportunity for young men particularly to rise from the depths of poverty to pinnacles of greatness in the sport and wealth beyond their imagining at the time they entered the sport. so we need to protect these people. we need to give them what a fair and legitimate playing field in which to compete. mr. president, i urge my colleagues -- and i want to again thank my friend, the majority leader, senator harry reid, who was a boxer of no --